


Finding Nina

by MPantrochilles



Series: Small, and a little bit broken [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Parents, Disabled Character, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Just all the avengers really, Kid Fic, Language!, M/M, two super soldiers and a toddler
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-10-20 04:30:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 53,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10654956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MPantrochilles/pseuds/MPantrochilles
Summary: Bucky sits on the edge of her bed, far away enough to allow her to decide if she doesn’t want him that close. He holds out his palms, the same way Natasha had, and Nina says the first word anyone has heard her say.“Papa!”“What?” Steve says as Bucky’s eyes go wide. It would be comical if the entire situation just weren’t so weird.It seemed to be a fairly standard mission. Go to Russia, find out why people are guarding an abandoned HYDRA base, sort them out, come home. Steve and Bucky did not expect to find a tiny child who insists that Bucky is her "papa".





	1. The Experiment

**Author's Note:**

> It's fairly standard procedure, I know, but I wanted to write a fic with everyone's two favourite super soldiers and a tiny child. There's enough coffee shop AU pieces, so why not this?
> 
> I hope you enjoy it!

“Fucking shit,” Steve mumbles into the comms as he takes a kick to the stomach. It doesn’t take long, about four seconds, really, for the person who delivered the kick to be unconscious on the concrete floor. He’s alive, unconscious but alive, judging by the rise and fall of his stomach as he lies there. There’ll be S.H.I.E.L.D agents to pick him up in a second.

“Language,” Natasha’s smirks, and she doesn’t even sound out of breath even though he just saw her run past and deliver a swift kick to the head of another one of the guards. They aren’t good agents, that’s for sure, because they’ve not got any qualms about hiding their faces, and they’re weakly armed. As if they weren’t expecting anyone. A little odd, and a lot optimistic for people using an old HYDRA building, that sticks out like a sore thumb in the middle of a Russian forest, and hasn’t been used by anyone for at least three decades.

The guard seem to be retreating further into the building, rather than running for the hills at the sight of three avengers.

“They’ve got something to hide,” Bucky says, and Steve can practically hear Sam’s eye roll.

“Cap your side kick is officially being renamed to Captain Obvious.”

“He’s just getting rusty in his old age,” Steve teases, and he knows Bucky is fake scowling.

“How many did the intel say there were?” Natasha asks, ignoring their childish behaviour.

“Six,” Bucky says, and there’s a shuffle of paper indicating he’s triple checking the file, even though he knows every word on every sheet of paper in it. He’s on the quinjet, not far from the old HYDRA base. He’s not been letting Steve go on missions alone, he hasn’t for the whole year that he’s been allowed out of the tower without being considered a danger to himself and others, but he’s not _technically_ allowed in the field. He’s currently being considered as Emergency-Only back-up, if you will.

“Small numbers for such a large-”

It’s a small noise that stops him talking, but enough to cause immediate panic. Natasha’s gasp was followed by a couple of deep breaths, and then she’s seemingly back to normal.

“It’s a Red Room,” she says, completely deadpan. Bucky swears. No one comments on it.

“Where are you?”

“Left, down the stairs, right.”

Steve runs, and at some point Sam has caught up with him. Natasha is stood by a door, her gun clenched hard in her hands. There are six hospital beds, and they’ve got hand cuffs attached to the metal bed frames. Tiny handcuffs. For tiny wrists.  Five of the beds are perfectly made up, but the one closest to the window has been slept in recently, and the handcuffs are open. Like they left in a hurry.  Steve frowns as he looks around the sparse room. A tiny TV in the corner, six beds, and medical records attached at the foot of each bed. Natasha is going from bed to bed, reading them out loud. Her voice was sharp and clear and it made Sam wince next to him.

“Ivan Petrov, arrived two years ago, age ten, severe scoliosis. Unsuccessful.”

“Alexander Solokov, arrived a year and a half ago, age thirteen, scoliosis, deaf. Unsuccessful.”

“Vadim Orlov, arrived a year and a half ago, age nine, scoliosis, asthma. Unsuccessful.”

“Anastasia Grekova, arrived a year ago, age twelve, scoliosis, angina. Unsuccessful.”

“Diana Mednikova, arrived a year ago, age eleven, scoliosis, myopia. Unsuccessful.”

“Nina Rzhevskaya, arrived half a year ago, age four, scoliosis.”

She stops. Nina’s bed is the one that hasn’t been made. The others all have a fine layer of dust on them.

“They’re like me,” Steve says quietly, but he’s drowned out by the crackle of the comms in their ears.

“Agents Fredrickson and Dixon have found a crematorium at the back of the building,” Bucky tells them, and his voice is hoarse. _Unsuccessful_ means dead _._

“There were six guards. Two dead; two detained; one on the run with agents on their heels. There’s another one.”

Sam leaves to take to the roof, and Steve and Natasha venture downwards. They find the guard, three floors down and in front of a heavy set of doors. Before he even lifts his weapon, Natasha takes him out. Her face is stone.

“The last one is down.”

“There’s a lab. Medical equipment- it’s current, on the market tech. More files on each of the kids- nothing is digitalised and there are hundreds of pages.” Sam informs them.

They try opening the doors- whatever was behind them, the guard thought it was worth giving up his life for. Eventually, brute force breaks the lock, and he and Natasha are able to get in.

Sat in a corner of what is basically a concrete box, a weak attempt at a panic room, with her legs tucked beneath her, is a tiny child. She’s clean, dressed in white hospital pyjamas that are too big, and her curly black hair is hiding her face as she looks down into her lap.

“Nina?” Natasha asks quietly, and the tiny child looks up, focused on Natasha. Natasha moves forward very slowly, her palms open so she has nothing to hide. Nina curls her upper body in on itself, but her legs don’t move.

“Nina,” Natasha repeats, and she’s pretty close now. Nina still hasn’t noticed Steve in the doorway. “ _Do you understand me?”_ Natasha asks, in Russian, and the four year old nods once, slow and deliberate. “ _We’re going to a safe place, so you can leave here, alright, little one?”_ Natasha asks, though Steve has no idea what she’s saying, but Nina lifts her arms by way of telling Natasha to lift her. Steve frowns- he wouldn’t have expected her to be so trusting after half a year in this place. But as soon as Natasha has Nina in her arms, he realises why. Her legs hang limp instead of wrapping around Natasha’s waist, and so Natasha has to change the way she holds her.

“She hasn’t got use of her legs,” Steve says. _That wasn’t on the file._ It’s only then that Nina notices him. And she bursts into tears. Her tiny sobs are muffled as she buries her face in Natasha’s neck, and Steve is looking at his friend in anguish. Natasha holds Nina closer, rubbing her back and they move as fast as they can back to the quinjet.

“ _He won’t hurt you, you’re safe with us,”_ Natasha is reassuring Nina. “ _No one is going to hurt you.”_

Steve covers for them until they are back to the jet, and Sam joins them, arms laden with whatever he could carry. There’ll be SHIELD agents to go and retrieve the rest. Nina cries when she sees him too, and refuses to let go of Natasha when the doctors on board try to take her. Natasha disappears to a quiet space with Nina, and Bucky appears to give Steve a hug and a grave look before he disappears again. 

Steve and Sam go to them instead, letting them poke and prod at their bruises and scratches before they’re dismissed and they can change back into civilian attire. Steve doesn’t know where Bucky is, but he’s thinking too hard to let it be a priority. _Bucky is safe on the plane._

 “What the hell did they do to her?” Steve asks Sam, rubbing a hand over his face. He feels a hundred years old.

“Serum.”

“What?” Steve looks at Sam in alarm, but he’s got his nose buried in the files they picked up.

“All these kids are like you pre-serum, slight differences, not as bad in some cases, but all like you. The doctor running the operation was a fan of yours, apparently, or rather of what they did to you. He’s not being funded by anyone- ironically he seems to hate all things western and American, and wants nothing to do with “new money”. But the guards keeping an eye on her were HYDRA. Low down and barely involved, but HYDRA all the same. He wanted to replicate the serum- so he adopted these kids to experiment on.”

“Adopted?”

“He took them from foster homes, from poor families that couldn’t afford medical care, from richer ones that just didn’t want the burden of a sick kid or one that ruined there image. All completely legally. He spent months hunting each kid out; to make sure they fit his criteria. He used a different name every time- but the same story: broken hearted, old doctor, with a back pocket full of cash that just wanted to help out. He’s recorded and transcribed interactions with the kids. They called him uncle. He got them to trust him.”

“Where did Nina come from?”

“Foster home.”

“She’s asleep in the room two doors down from here,” Natasha interrupts, and there’s a wet patch on her shoulder from Nina’s tears. “She’s exhausted. Probably won’t wake up until we reach New York.”

Bucky joins them, and when Sam is done telling them everything that he told Steve, Bucky has a murderous look on his face. Natasha is painfully still. Soon, she has to go to answer a call from Coulson on the phone, and Sam leaves to go talk to the other agents about what they found out from the detained guards.

“Nina was the closest he got.” Steve says, and Bucky looks over to him. “She didn’t die when he administered it, but it didn’t work the whole way. Her spine straightened out, but her legs were the price.”

“She’s alive,” Bucky says evenly, and Steve drops his head into his hands. He feels rather than sees Bucky move, and he relaxes as Bucky’s hand rests between his shoulder blades.

“Do you think she was sedated?” He asks, the words catching in his throat, and Bucky’s hand stops making circular motions on his back.

“I don’t know.”

“It hurt so much, Buck,” Steve’s whispering now, and if Bucky hadn’t been so close, he wouldn’t have heard him. “Your whole body being stretched and bones rearranging and skin stretching over newly formed muscle hurts so much you think you’d rather die.”

Bucky thinks he’s going to be sick. He doesn’t get a chance to reply, because there’s crying from down the hall way. Nina hadn’t gone to anyone but Natasha, and Natasha wasn’t here. Bucky was up and outside the room in record time, with Steve hot on his heels.

“ _Nina I’m going to come in,”_ Bucky says in Russian, and he opens the door. Nina hadn’t said a word to anyone, not even Natasha- she’d cried herself to sleep in Natasha’s arms. Her face is red and splotchy and she’s leaning against the wall by the hospital bed, her legs stretched out in front of her _._ Bucky can’t help but think of Steve when they were kids.

“ _Hey, malyshka, can I come over?”_ Bucky asks, and Nina just stares. She looks at both Steve and him, but she doesn’t cry and harder when she sees Steve this time. Bucky sits on the edge of her bed, far enough away to allow her to decide if she doesn’t want him that close. He holds out his palms, the same way Natasha had, and Nina says the first word anyone has heard her say.

“Papa!”

“What?” Steve says as Bucky’s eyes go wide. It would be comical if the entire situation just weren’t so _weird_. Nina tries to stifle her sobs, but it only makes it worse, and eventually she caves and just cries as hard as she can, her little body shaking. Every time Bucky tried to go near her, she’d shrink away.

“She called you Papa.”

“I think we need to go through the rest of Nina’s files.”

It takes a full fifteen minutes to get Nina to stop crying, but she says nothing else. She only hesitantly nods when Bucky asks if she would like a glass of water. Steve runs to get it, and when he comes back, Bucky is whispering to her in Russian and she’s sat in his lap. Steve tries to give her the water, but she won’t take it until Bucky takes a sip to show it’s alright.

She won’t let go of him, and they resign to taking her with them to read her file. Bucky carries her on his hip with his metal arm, and she’s so tiny against him that you almost wouldn’t notice she was there.

Sam and Natasha are poring over the files, trying to get as much information as possible. Sam has a cup of coffee in his hand, and there’s an empty one an arm’s length away from him.

“Nina called Bucky _Papa_ ,” Steve says, and they both snap their heads up to look at him.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Sam says, “There’s no fuc-”

“There’s a child in the room, Wilson,” Bucky sharply reminds him. Natasha is studying Nina, who has taken interest in tracing over the joins in the metal of Bucky’s arm. No more red star, and Tony had taken days (no sleep for eighty seven hours and thirty two cups of coffee, he’d proudly told them as he fitted the new prosthetic on) to recreate what HYDRA had done. He’d been careful to avoid any sort of insignia. Bucky didn’t _belong_ to anyone anymore. He didn’t need to be branded.

Steve shook his head, trying to forget the screaming from when they’d removed the rest of his arm from his shoulder. He’d refused sedation, understandably. Tony and Bruce had examined him- the wiring went all the way to his spinal cord. They weren’t going to put him through the hell of removing it, (even if it meant _extensive_ improvements because this is _old tech, old_ man) so they adapted the new arm to the false nerve endings. The new metal arm came with a brace that fit like a second skin, so the weight was evenly distributed across his shoulders and neck, and it didn’t have to be surgically welded into his skin.  He could remove it whenever he wanted.

“Nina _,”_ Natasha says, firm enough to get her attention, kind enough to prevent her from bursting into tears. “ _Who is this?”_ She gestures to Bucky.

“Papa,” Nina says, frowning. Everyone’s still letting it sink in that she’ll talk to them.

“ _Who told you?”_ Natasha asks, and she’s not really expecting an answer. Nina looks to Bucky.

“ _It’s okay, Nina, you can tell her.”_

_“Uncle.”_ She’s very quiet, and grips onto Bucky in fear. She’s scared of the doctor.

“The doctor told her,” Natasha relays to Sam and Steve, and Sam pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Which bits are about Nina?” Steve asks, sitting next to Sam. Nina has gone back to running her hands over Bucky’s metal arm, and Natasha and Bucky are just watching her, unsure of what to do or say.

“Most of it is about her. The other’s-” Sam takes a deep breath. “The other’s weren’t around very long for this extensive data collection.” Steve grimaces.

“What have we got so far?”

“Her legs are paralysed, but not any other area- the doctor suspects it’s a case of damage to the brain because of the serum, not her spine. Her scoliosis is cured, her ribs and everything are all in the right place, and there’s no pressure on internal organs. Her cognitive function is fine, above average, even-” Sam rattles on, and Steve just listens.

“This doctor did go to medical school, and has a psychiatry degree. He did his PhD on the benefits of hypnosis in trauma patients.”

“Sounds like brainwashing to me,” Bucky interjects lowly. He’s sat on the chair opposite them, and Nina is sat in his lap, holding onto his shirt with one hand and playing with Bucky’s metal hand with the other. Steve hums in agreement, and Natasha is still looking at Nina with an expression no one can read.

“ _Nina, why were you with Uncle?”_ Natasha asks, and it takes some encouragement from Bucky, who she inexplicably trusts, but she does reply.

“ _Waiting for Papa. Getting big and strong.”_  Natasha translates, and everyone can’t help but think it sounds rehearsed.

“Holy f-”

“Wilson.” Bucky warns, and Nina looks up at him at the sharpness of his tone. He assures her nothing is wrong. Sam gives him a dirty look, before shoving a piece of paper in front of Steve.

“He was getting commissioned. HYDRA found out about his project,” he spits the word, “and commissioned him. If he could make the serum work, then they’d have a baby super solider. They paid him for her. He was training her to think that she’s the next Soldier while continuing experimentation with the serum for her legs; plant the seed of loyalty and make her the ultimate weapon.”

“Like the Red Room,” Natasha supplies.

“Yes.”

“So she’s not mine?” Bucky asks, and he knows the answer, and the last word feels heavy and odd on his tongue, but he needs to ask the question anyway. He needs to hear it. Steve is looking at him like his heart is breaking.

“No, she came from a foster home. A teenage mum gave her up. The father’s name is there, but according to the adoption records, wasn’t interested in her at all.”  

Bucky takes a moment to breathe, and Nina copies him.

The rest of the plane journey they spend trying to understand as much about Nina as possible. Her birthday is June 14th; she speaks and understands English and Russian. She was the only one of the six children to have congenital scoliosis- the fact that she’s so young is probably what saved her. She remembers none of the procedure but has a fear of medical equipment. She is not as comfortable around the doctor as she was when she was first adopted. She does not question about her heritage, though she was easily accepting of the fact that Bucky is her father- “the hypnosis was easy”, one entry in her file reads. She does remember the foster home, and the woman who was looking after her there. There was no need to erase those memories. She’s developing as a normal child, and is extremely resourceful even without the use of her legs, but is “still too emotional”.

They learn from Nina herself that she likes to draw. Steve can’t take much more of the clinical analysis of the personality of such a tiny child by the time they have an hour left of the journey, so he picks up a scrap piece of paper and draws her sitting on Bucky’s lap. Nina had been only paying attention to Bucky and Natasha when she was awake (she’d drifted off once or twice, but not for long), who spoke to her in quiet Russian, even though she didn’t talk back, until she heard the _swoosh_ of pencil on paper. She craned her neck and watched him, and then made a grabbing motion for the pencil. Steve softly smiled, gladly relinquishing the pencil and paper to her. She practically threw herself forward to be put on the floor so that she could draw.

When they landed, she immediately clung to Bucky again, forgetting all about her drawing. It’s all nonsensical squiggles and shapes at first, until Steve focuses and turns it the right way around and realises that she’s attempted to draw a human target, concentric circles on the head and torso.

He tucks it into her file as evidence.


	2. The First Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pretty much what it says on the tin :)

Bucky hated nothing more than board meetings. They were long, and dull, and when he tried to speak people spoke over him, and when they didn’t, they were all watching him too closely for it to be comfortable.

Nina had been his escape.

They’d landed in New York late, and by the time they were back at Stark Tower, it was one in the morning. Nina had refused to eat anything since they found her. Fury had been immediately alerted of the child, and was insisting on a meeting as soon as they had landed. Nina was still refusing to let go of him, however, and all the avengers in one place would be sure to induce some sort of panic. So he’d been let out, and Steve had promised he’d fill him in on everything that happened.

He’d taken Nina to the room across from his and Steve’s, but she’d cried when he’d tried to leave her. So he settled her down on their bed, and belatedly, he realised she was still in the clothes from the facility they’d found her in. By the time he’d found a piece of clothing she could wear (Jarvis, from somewhere, has acquired a pair of children’s pyjamas. They had the avengers on them) she was already fast asleep. He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face, before lying down next to her on the bed. She still hadn’t said much, but he put it down to the trauma of being a science experiment and being removed from the only place you know, even if bad things happened there.

He knew the feeling.

He was still awake when Steve finally got back, at three in the morning, looking like hell. Bucky told him so.

“Yeah, well, you ain’t exactly sunshine and rainbows at the crack of dawn either.”

“I’m never sunshine and rainbows, that’s your job,” Bucky teased, and Steve couldn’t help but smile. He leaned down, “can I kiss you?” whispered for Bucky’s ears only, as he did every time.

Bucky replied with a soft kiss, hesitant still. Not for any reason other than growing up in the twenties and thirties, and being in the army makes a man sort of hesitant about displaying affection for another man, even in private, for fear of being caught.

“Did she say anything else?” He asked as he sat down next to Bucky. They usually slept next to each other, a reassurance that they’d still be together in the morning, but he did not want to upset Nina if she woke up to find a strange person next to her. She’d been through enough already, and she was only four.

“Not a word. I tried to lay her down in the other bedroom, I thought she might prefer it if she’s used to sleeping alone, but she cried so I laid her down in here and she went out like a light. How was the meeting?”

“Most of it was reading through her files. We’re gonna have to be careful, because she’s been brainwashed to fear the avengers. Well. The intent wasn’t fear, more hatred, but that’s what they got. She’s stronger than they thought she would be- mentally- which is why not everything they did worked.”

Bucky is momentarily glad that he didn’t change Nina.

“We? She’s not being taken away?”

“She won’t let go of you, Buck. She’s convinced you’re her dad. Fury had Dr Cho come in and discuss possible outcomes of what would happen, and basically, if she’s not with you, it’s gonna end badly.” Steve bit his lip, his gaze flicking from Nina to Bucky. She was _so tiny_.

“Are you telling me we have a kid now?” Bucky looked at him, eyebrows raised because that was just about what he could summon the energy up for to express his opinion of the incredulous idea.

“You have to agree first, and it has to get all signed on paper, and there has to be some analysis from a qualified doctor of you and Nina, but yeah basically you have a kid now-”

“No Steve,” Bucky said, cutting off Steve’s spiel. “We. We have a kid now. You said till the end of the line, and you sure as hell ain’t backin’ out now. Not after near a goddamn century.”

“We,” Steve repeated, with a small smile on his lips. “We- tentatively, because we have to see how Nina reacts- have a kid now.”

“And it’s legal,” Bucky said with a cheeky grin.

“And it’s legal,” Steve yawned around the words. “Not like Ms Jones and Ms Davies who lived two blocks down with Ms Jones’ ‘niece’ who we most definitely did not hear calling Ms Davies _mom_ and Ms Jones _mama,_ that one time, no sir.” Steve stretched as he chuckled, and Bucky laughed with him. The world had changed a lot. Steve pressed a kiss to Bucky’s forehead, and ran a finger over the back of Nina’s hand before he left the room.

“I’m leaving both doors open, I’m just across the hall. I love you.”

“I love you,” Bucky whispered back, before turning to Nina. He hadn’t been afraid of going to sleep for reasons other than nightmares in a long time- what if he crushed her? She was _so small_. He watched the steady rise and fall of her chest, her minute changes in facial expressions, the clenching and unclenching of her tiny fists. She has one arm rigidly above her head, and he thinks about the handcuffs on the bedframes at the HYDRA facility.

“I will protect you with all that I am, _malyshka,”_ he promised, and he didn’t even have time to question why he said it, before he fell asleep. He knew it was true, though. He hadn’t had the urge to protect anyone apart from Steve in so long, but Nina was an exception.

 

 

Whimpers wake Bucky at 07:27, the little clock on Steve’s bedside table tells him, but they aren’t his own, or Steve’s, for once. It takes him a moment to register that the noise is, in fact, Nina. And then the smell and the dampness hit him. He internally curses himself for not thinking about this before they slept yesterday. She wet the bed. She’d been crying silently, by the looks of the tear tracks on her face. The fear in her eyes when she looks up at Bucky and realises she’s woken him makes him want to cry.

He winces at a memory- one he’d thought he’d forgotten.

 _Boys don’t cry_. It’s a man’s voice, and a familiar one. Logically, he knows it’s his father, but it’s not like he remembers properly.

And then: “ _Still too emotional,”_ he thinks.  
“- _does not learn from being left to cry-”  
“ –responded to being punished for emotional outburst-”_

“Oh Nina, _milaya,_ it’s okay,” he says, as soothing as possible, as he reaches out to her. His shoulders ache from having slept in the brace, because he usually doesn’t, but he ignores it. She shrinks away from him, rolling over onto her stomach, trying to muffle her sobs, just the same as yesterday. “You can cry, Nina, it’s okay, I won’t hurt you,” he promises, in English and then in Russian, and he holds out his hand next to her so she can take it when she wants.

“ _Uncle said you wouldn’t like it when I cried.”_ It’s a mishmash of English and Russian, but Bucky understands her. “ _You’d get angry.”_ It’s more words than she’s spoken since they met, and they all cut Bucky to the bone. When he finds that scientist, he’s going to kill him.

 “No, Nina, I’ll never get angry if you cry. You can cry all you need. I’ll get you a glass of water if you need that, and I can give you a hug if you want, like yesterday.” He says slowly, in both languages, trying to make sure she understands that he means what he’s saying. She turns to him then.

“Like yesterday?”

Bucky holds his arms out in response, but she doesn’t flinch this time. She nods, and he smiles.

“How about we change you first?” he asks, and grabs the children’s pyjama’s that he’d left on the floor by the bed. He blinks, but doesn’t let the surprise last too long- they aren’t the avengers ones from yesterday, they’re pink and stripy. Someone came in to change them, without waking him up. He thinks it was probably Wanda. He holds them up for Nina to inspect, and she decides they’re okay. They change her, Bucky tries to not obviously freak out at the sore spots up and down Nina’s legs, and she doesn’t fuss at all like his sister’s used to, and then he strips the bedding. He sets Nina down on the arm chair by the window and opens it a fraction before he changes the sheets, throwing the soiled ones into the corridor. Her quiet sniffles spur him on to move faster.

Once he’s done, he gathers her up in his arms, and sits up against the headboard with her in his lap. He rocks her and strokes her back in circles and pets her hair and kisses her forehead, and eventually she stops crying.

“I am never gonna hurt you, okay, Nina? Never. Neither is Steve, or anyone around here.”

“Steve?” She doesn’t look at him as she asks the question.

“Tall man with blonde hair,” he tries to jog her memory, and as if his ears were burning, Steve appears in the bedroom doorway. She briefly glances his way as Bucky whispers conspiratorially and loud enough for Steve to hear. “Kinda funny lookin’ if you ask me.”

Steve smiles lopsidedly, and it makes Bucky’s heart beat funny, but Nina doesn’t smile back. She just looks at him out of the corner of her eye.

“Mornin’ Nina,” he addresses her, and she places a hand on Bucky’s chest, just above his heart. She doesn’t cling to him though- but maybe she doesn’t feel the need when she’s wrapped up so tight in his arms. “Can I come in?” He asks, dipping his head as if he were speaking to royalty. Nina looks at him properly, and then at Bucky, her eyes wide.

“Me?” She says quietly, and the disbelief on her face is plain as day.

“Yeah, sweetheart, he’s askin’ you. You can say no and he’ll go away if you don’t want him here.”

“No.” She’s unsure and a little scared. She’s testing us, he thinks, and is slightly awed by the bravery of it.

“I’ll go get breakfast ready then,” Steve tells her, with another dip of his head, and then he leaves. Bucky hears him gathering up the sheets he threw outside and putting them in the wash basket. Her eyes go wide and she looks at Bucky.

“ _He left,”_ she whispers, and she looks a little dazed. “ _Papa he left.”_

“Yup. You asked him to so he did. We wanna make sure you’re comfortable here.”

Nina seems to need a moment or two to process the fact that she’s being listened to, and Bucky is more than happy to contemplate in silence, trying to decide if being called Papa is weird or not. He settles on not. He actually kinda likes it. Steve appears later with a glass of milk, two steaming mugs of coffee and toast for each of them on a tray. Bucky counts at least five different types of condiments that Nina could choose from to have on her toast. Steve hovers in the doorway, like some sort of breakfast vampire. Bucky tries really hard not to laugh.

“Hey Nina,” Steve says, and she’s looking at the breakfast tray. “You wanna eat breakfast in bed?”

“In bed?” The little gasp is so cute that Bucky swears he feels his heart squeeze. He’s also extremely proud that she’s responding to questions, but it’s probably because she’s hungry. Lord knows when the last time she ate was.

“Yup, in bed.”

“Yes.”

Steve beams, and walks over to the bed, balancing the tray next to Bucky, who turns Nina around so she’s facing the middle of the bed rather than the edge of it.

“Can I sit down?” He asks, and Nina is too absorbed in looking at breakfast to notice or care. She seems rather preoccupied by all the different colours of jam.

“For me?” she asks quietly, one hand on Bucky’s heart and the other on hers. Bucky just nods because his voice is gonna break if he speaks. Steve takes over, constructing Nina’s breakfast for her. She’s testing him still, to see if he’ll tell her off at any point, but he doesn’t. Not even when she asks for three different flavours of jam on one piece of toast, which he just cuts up into soldiers for her.

She gets Bucky to take a bite of each of them, and he has a sip of her milk, before she decides all of it is safe for her to eat. She eats fast, and by the end of breakfast her face is covered in milk and jam and crumbs, and Bucky is laughing at Steve who honestly isn’t much better.

“Nina’s four, Steve. You’re one hundred and four. Honestly I expect better than you.”

“I am not one hundred and four,” he pouts, cleaning his face. Miraculously, Nina lets him clean hers too.

“Close enough.”

It’s almost ten by the time they’re done, and Bucky’s phone pings.

_You have a meeting with Director Fury at 12. Bring Nina._

Steve gets a similar text. Steve clears up after them, while Bucky tries to explain to Nina what’s going on. He explains who Fury is, and why they have to see if Bucky can look after her.

“Papa hasn’t been a Papa before, so they just have to check he’s gonna be good at it,” Steve supplies helpfully. Nina does not look all too convinced, but she says nothing. Bucky notices as she hugs him, that she still smells of hospitals.

“Shall we go have a bath?”

Bucky carries her to the bathroom, and he’d like to say he was surprised to see the multitude of toys and kids products that have suddenly taken up any space that was in the bathroom, but he’s not. There are even clothes set out on the hamper for Nina.

“We shall have to go and say thank you to Pepper,” he tells Nina, but honestly it’s more of a reminder for him. Bucky changes Nina out of her pyjama’s, and tries to put her in the bubble bath, but she immediately starts to cry. So he strips and gets in with her, which she is much happier about. He has to take off the arm, and he leaves it on the ledge by the window. Nina watches him, her eyes wide, and Bucky thinks he’s going to have to put it back before she speaks, very softly.

“They hurt you too?”

“Yes,” he replies, because honestly he doesn’t know what else to this tiny child who should really not be nodding like she understands the concept of torture. He lifts her, and when they sit in the bath together, she takes a moment to run her hand cautiously over the mess of scar tissue that is the stump of his shoulder.

He’s careful when he washes her legs, though she’s too busy playing with bubbles to notice any change in his behaviour. She actually smiles when he washes her hair, and Bucky is sure it’s the most beautiful smile he’s ever seen.

“What a little champ,” he tells her as he bundles her up in a towel, once they’re out of the bath, and she smiles again.

He brushes her hair and helps her with her teeth and dresses her in the dungarees and t-shirt that Pepper has left out. All the material is impossibly soft, and Nina coos as she runs her hands over the material. She watches intently as he puts his arm on again. He keeps the jokes about “needing a hand” to himself for now.

Bucky just about manages to throw on a t-shirt and pair of jeans before he and Nina are being rushed to the elevator by Steve, who looks much more put together than Bucky feels. There’s the distinct feeling of dread rising in his stomach as they get to the room that Fury has told them to meet him in. Nina has gone back to clinging to Bucky and distinctly not looking at Steve.

Fury meets them at the doorway to his make shift office. There are sandwiches on the table and a train set in the corner.

“I’m fully aware that it is midday, and four year olds need to eat regularly,” he tells Bucky and Steve. Bucky feeds Nina, and yet again has to taste everything she eats before she will. Fury watches the exchange extremely closely. There’s a woman sat in the corner taking notes, and it sets Bucky slightly on edge that she was not introduced.

“Helen’s friend,” Fury assures him, and he relaxes but only a little.

“Director, did you see my note in Nina’s file?” Steve asks, and Bucky raises an eyebrow at him. “The drawing.”

“Ah, yes,” Fury nods, and he takes a look at Nina, who is resting in Bucky’s lap with her hand on his heart. It’s rapidly becoming her go to position.

“There’s no chance of her birth parents taking her back.” It’s a statement that Bucky hadn’t realised he’d wanted to hear so badly. “And we can’t hand a possibly enhanced child over to normal authorities.” Bucky and Steve give twin nods, and Bucky’s arms tighten around Nina ever so slightly. Steve lays a hand on his shoulder and Bucky thinks it must make a pretty picture- two super soldiers and a tiny four year old.

“We’ll need to do some tests, regulation examinations-” Nina clenches her fist in his shirt at the mention of _examinations,_ and tries to make herself as small as possible, as if she’s trying to hide. It doesn’t go unnoticed. “We’ll have Banner take a look at her. You both trust him, and she’ll be more comfortable with someone you trust, and it won’t have to be around any…paraphernalia.” _No medical equipment._

The rest of the meeting is spent watching the three of them, Bucky, Steve and Nina, interact. Bucky’s skin crawls, he feels like he’s on display the way the doctor keeps on looking at him from her seat in the corner. Steve has always been much better at putting on a show for the people than he was.

 The doctor, Dr Goldstein, continually makes notes on one tablet, while referring to another. He supposes she’s analysing his files, and the notes from countless therapy sessions. After fifty four minutes, Goldstein takes Fury outside to have a discussion. Bucky catches half a sentence as the door shuts.

“Usually it takes months of interactions and analysis to make this sort of decision-”

Apparently, Nina and Steve hear it too, because they both turn to Bucky. Nina’s eyes are wide, and Steve is frowning.  

“Are they gonna take me away from you, Papa?” she asks so quietly that he almost misses it. He looks to Steve, who’s at a loss for words, and they both realise in that moment that they are _terrified_ of the idea that they might lose Nina. It’s quite a slap in the face, considering they’ve only known she existed for just about twenty four hours. Then Fury enters, and Bucky has to give him credit for his excellent timing.

“The three of you will be sent to family therapy sessions twice a week _minimum_ with Dr Goldstein. You’re to live in the Tower where’s there’s surveillance and security at all times, and one of you is to be with Nina at all times until she’s confident in being left with those who have clearance, for example, Agent Romanoff.” Fury lists the terms and conditions of Nina’s adoption, and most of them are a given, and then he puts a tablet in front of the two of them.

“Fingerprints and signatures. I’ll have one of our lawyers do the paperwork for you.”

Bucky and Steve scramble to do as he says, and Nina wearily eyes Dr Goldstein, who just smiles at her.

“I- we- I can’t believe- we’re-” Bucky’s tongue feels like it’s sticking to the roof of his mouth.

“You’d expect a super soldier who speaks five languages to be more coherent,” Fury flippantly comments.

“Good luck, Nina,” he looks at the four year old, and then turns to his agents. “She’s going to need it with parents like you.”

Steve and Bucky don’t know whether to be insulted or not, so they just mutter their thanks and Fury leaves, his cape of a coat swishing behind him.

“I’m staying?” Nina says after Goldstein has left too, and Bucky cuddles her close.

“Yeah sweetheart, you’re staying. We’re family now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	3. The Good Doctor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce comes for a check-up for little Nina

When they get back to their floor of the tower, their apartment, it’s been child proofed from head to toe. There’s a toy hamper by the bookcase in the living room; the bookcase itself is now packed with children’s books; art supplies have been stored next to Steve’s, and from where he’s standing in the living room Bucky can see plastic mugs and cups and plates in the cupboards. Steve has wondered down the corridor to the spare bedroom, and he calls back that it has been converted for Nina. There are cuddly toys on the bed, more in another toy hamper, and a wardrobe of clothes, and an old fashioned rocking chair by the window with a sinfully soft blanket, and blue wooden letters stuck to the door spelling out her name.

“Pepper is having a lot of fun playing house,” Steve says as he wonders back. How she got everything done so quickly, Bucky would never know. There’s a note in his hand in Pepper Potts’ unmistakable loopy cursive.

_To help Nina get settled in.  
P _

“We should tell Stark that his girl really wants a baby,” Bucky smirks, and Steve snorts with laughter.

Bucky has set Nina down by the coffee table (the corners have been covered by squishy bits of plastic) and dragged the toys over to her. She’s pulling out all of them and inspecting them, trying to figure out what to do with so much choice. Bucky can only empathise- if he’d seen this many toys as a child he probably would have cried. Steve settles down on the floor next to her, chatting to her, though she doesn’t talk back at first, only listens.

“What shall we name this one?” He holds up a rabbit with floppy ears in front of her.

“Name?” It’s in the same tone of voice that she used this morning when Steve came to say hello. She’s not used to being asked her opinions. On anything.

“Yeah, kiddo, name. Like I’m Steve and you’re Nina and that’s Bucky,” he says, pointing at each of them.

“Papa,” Nina corrects, pointing at Bucky, and Steve smiles and nods in agreement.

“So you get to choose this little guys name,” he hands her the rabbit, and she carefully feels his ears.

“Myagkiy,” she mumbles, slightly in awe.

“Myagkiy?” Steve stumbles over the Russian word, “that’s a good name!”

“Not sure if that’s what she was going for- it means soft-” Bucky says, but Nina just nods and repeats herself.

“Myagkiy. Good name.”

They continue to play like this, Nina naming her toys and pulling herself around on the floor using her hands, once she gets brave enough to go on a little adventure to the bookcase, with Steve’s encouragement. She looks, but does not touch, until they both assure her that she can. Steve is reading to her, and she’s sat closer to him than ever before so she can look at the pictures that accompany the story. Bucky takes a photo, without either of them noticing, and then his phone pings.

_Banner: Fury’s sending me up to take a look at Nina. When would be a good time?_

Bucky looks over to Nina, who’s valiantly trying to stay awake as Steve reads, but she’s leaning against him and her eyes keep drifting shut.

_Come by in an hour and a half? She needs a nap._

_Sure thing._

 By the time Bucky looks up from his phone again, Nina has fallen asleep against Steve. He stops reading and puts away the book, before twisting around to pick her up off the floor. She sighs in his arms. He settles her down on the sofa, so that when she wakes up they won’t be too far. Bucky goes about making something to eat for the two of them- while Nina had eaten, he and Steve had been too nervous- and Steve grabs the blanket from her bedroom and drapes it over her. He leaves Myagkiy next to her as well.

He joins Bucky in the kitchen, and they work together to make some sort of pasta dish but neither are entirely paying attention so they’ll just have to see how it turns out. Steve’s frowning into the pot.

“Something wrong with it?”

“Nina’s going to need a chair,” Steve mutters, looking over to her sleeping frame.

“Banner’s coming up in about an hour to give her a check-up. Not sure how he’s going to do it not in a doctor’s office and with minimal equipment, but we’ll have to see.”

“Do you reckon Tony would build her a pair? Like Rhodey’s?”

“I guess we’ll have to wait and see.”

They eat lunch and wash up together, and by the time they’re done, Nina’s awake.

“Papa?” She calls out, and the panic is evident in her voice. The apartment is still relatively new; her sleep addled brain probably hasn’t caught up with her yet.

“Right here, sweetheart,” he calls out, and he and Steve make their way over to her. She reaches for Bucky to pick her up, and he does, cuddling her close. She has Myagkiy by the leg.

“ _I need the toilet,”_ she tells him in Russian, glancing at Steve, obviously still slightly embarrassed by this morning. Bucky takes her, and when they get back, Banner is sitting on the sofa next to Steve, talking in hushed tones. Nina clings to him, like she’s trying to melt into his side.

“Hi Nina,” Steve says, and she looks at him. “Bruce here is a friend, like Natasha and Sam yesterday. You wanna say hi?”

Bucky and Nina sit in the arm chair opposite, and she seems to be weighing up the pros and cons of saying hi or not.

“S’okay, Nina, you don’t have to,” Bruce tells her, his voice soft and calm. Bucky marvels at how a man who can literally turn into a monster can be such a calming presence, because Nina actually relaxes a tiny bit.

“What have you been doing today?” he asks, and her eyes dart over to the bookcase, but other than that, she doesn’t move.

“Reading? Did your dads read to you?” Steve actually blushes at being called dad- he and Bucky and Nina hadn’t actually discussed that yet. Nina nods in Steve’s direction all the same.

“What was the story about?”

There’s a moment of silence, and Bucky taps Nina’s back to let her know that it’s okay to talk.

“A chicken.”

Bruce smiles wide, and Bucky and Steve let out a sigh of relief. Nina continues to answer Bruce’s questions about the books, about her rabbit, and she gets a little braver every time he smiles at her.  

“How old are you Nina?” He asks. Nina holds up four fingers, and tells him in both Russian and English.

“That’s pretty big! Do you know how big you are?” He asks, using his hand to show he means height, and she shakes her head. “Would you like to know?” She looks at Bucky, who nods, so she does too.

“How?” She asks, and Bruce pulls out a measuring tape from…somewhere. Steve looks at Bucky with an eyebrow raised. Nina’s breath hitches.

“I’ll show you, how about that?” He slides off the sofa and onto the floor, and pulls Steve down with him. “Now I’m going to lie on the floor, and your dad is going to measure me from the back of my foot to the very top of my head. And then he can measure you just the same.”

Bruce is five foot ten, Steve is six foot two, Bucky is five foot nine and Nina is two foot seven. Bruce gives a nod, and jots it down on his phone when Nina isn’t looking.

“Can I take a look at your legs?” Bruce asks, while Nina is lying down on the floor, and immediately she hauls herself across the floor to Bucky. Steve is glad the dungarees she’s wearing are thick, because there’d be welts across her legs from dragging herself around like he used to have, from when the chronic pain got too much and he had to go around the house on his hands, like Nina did.

“I won’t touch,” Bruce promises, and Bucky swears that he’ll stay with her and so will Steve to make sure he keeps his promise. After ten minutes of almost-tears, Nina agrees, and she lets Bucky take off her dungarees and socks. She’s left in her stripy t-shirt and knickers, looking pitifully at her papa, and Bucky has to breathe deeply to prevent himself from telling Bruce to fuck off, bundling Nina in his arms and hiding them away so she doesn’t look sad like that ever again. Bucky lies her down on the floor, and then lies next to her, placing his metal hand on her chest ever so lightly. And then he has an idea. He sits up again, and pulls his t shirt over his head, and then carefully hoists off his arm and the brace, handing it to Steve who already has Nina’s clothes in his lap.

“Bruce can look at your legs and my shoulder together, yeah?” He asks, and Nina nods as he lies back down next to her. “Bruce is the one that fixed my shoulder,” he tells her, pointing at the web of scars. “He and Tony made it all better.”

“After the bad?”

“Yes, Nina, after the bad guys.”

“He going to make my legs better?”

“If you let him take a look.”

Nina is still very tense under Bruce’s watch, and when he asks her to roll over so he can take a look at the back and sides, she does so reluctantly. Bucky does the same too, and then he lets Bruce take a look at his shoulder to appease Nina.

“Well, Barnes, I don’t know how to tell you this, but it seems to me like you don’t have an arm,” Bruce jokes, winking at Nina who is now letting Steve dress her again. She’s much more comfortable once she’s clothed. Bucky scowls good-naturedly at Bruce, and Steve chuckles.

“Yeah it’s over there,” he deadpans, looking at his prosthetic on the coffee table. Bruce goes to get it to give to him, but he shakes his head and pulls his t-shirt over his head instead. He doesn’t want to admit it, but his shoulders are still sore from sleeping in the brace. He’s a solider, a sniper, he’s been through hell and back, and he can’t deal with a little muscle strain, he thinks, rolling his eyes to himself. Steve is carrying Nina, a milestone in itself that she trusts him enough, and takes her over to the kitchen to get her a snack.

“They aren’t pressure sores, on her legs,” Bruce tells him quietly, and Bucky nods. No medication needed. “They’re bruising from IV needles,” he says, even quieter, and Bucky frowns.

“What kinda shitty doctor doesn’t know how to do an IV?”

Bruce raises an eyebrow. _A HYDRA one._

“They should heal up soon- if they don’t, call me. I’ve been reading her file…” He trails off as he takes a look at Nina. She’s at the fridge with Steve, still deciding on a snack. Bucky coughs to get his attention back. “They were pumping her with some sort of serum, after they did the one that fixed her back. They’d been doing that for three and a half months, trying small doses of cocktails of drugs to get her legs to work. They didn’t hit the spot, because her nerves are obviously still shot and she can’t move, but that’s probably why the muscles in her legs are still alright, because from the records, they didn’t bother with any other method of care.”

“Fucking hell.”

 “Yeah.”

“They had her for six months, and for half of that she was being pumped full of chemicals?” Bruce bites his lip and pushes his glasses up his nose, as if he’s debating telling Bucky the truth. “Banner,” Bucky says, a little harsher than necessary, “tell me what they did to my kid.”

“For all of it. That doctor was more careful with Nina than with the first few, he was prepping her for the serum from the second she got there. He figured if she’d been exposed little by little, she would respond better to the final treatment.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“We’re not sure what he was using, and we’re sure as hell not going to try and replicate it, even if we had blood samples-”

“You ain’t getting any. No needles.” Bucky interrupts, and Bruce nods.

“She’s had all her shots so yeah, no needles. We’re just going to have to hope that her body doesn’t go into shock from suddenly stopping the treatment. She shouldn’t, but there’s always a small chance.”

“Not sure I needed to know that,” Bucky grumbles, because he knows he’s going to worry constantly now. Not that he wasn’t before.

“Yeah you did,” Bruce says evenly. “But there’s stuff you guys can do. Physio exercises with her legs before she goes to bed and when she wakes up to make sure that her muscles stay in good condition. I’ll send you a couple of pages to read through and do with her by tonight.”

“Thanks.”

“Happy to help. I sent her measurements to Tony- he bought a kid wheelchair yesterday and had it delivered at like five am, which Pepper wasn’t happy about- but yeah he’ll probably be done by this evening.”

“He’ll have taken the other one apart, even though it was fine without the improvements, have decided its shit, and built a new one with a cup holder,” Bucky says with a roll of his eyes.

“Exactly,” Bruce says with a nod of his head. “Oh, actually, would you weigh her as well? Just to check. Didn’t think she’d be that comfortable with me doing it.”

Bucky nods that sure he will, and Bruce calls out that he’s leaving, waving goodbye.

“I’ll see you around, okay? Nice meeting you.”

“Bye, Dr Bruce,” she says quietly from where she’s sitting on Steve’s lap, drinking juice through a straw. Bruce nods again, mutters something that sounds like “smart kid” because they’ve been trying to avoid calling him a doctor so she doesn’t get scared, and then it’s just the three of them in the apartment once more.

Steve gets a text from Goldstein asking them to see about Nina’s reading and writing skills, so Bucky and Nina sit at the kitchen table with pencils and paper, seeing what she knows while Steve goes about deciding what to eat for dinner. He goes to ask Bucky a question, but the sound dies before it reaches his lips. He has to just take a moment to look at them, Bucky tucking a stray lock of curly hair behind Nina’s ear as she concentrates very hard on spelling her name. Steve takes a photo, and Bucky grins at him when he hears the little camera click. Nina looks up, and asks to see the picture. Steve shows her, and she traces over Bucky’s face, and then her own.

“Papa and Nina,” she says, before giving the device back to him.

Steve spends a solid forty five minutes on the internet, on various parenting websites and food blogs, trying to decide what they should be feeding a four year old. He gives up and texts Barton in the end, asking about his kids.

They settle on noodles.

Nina, it turns out, is a little genius, if Bucky says so himself. Steve teases him that he’s biased, and then they do some research, and Steve has to agree that she’s a lot further ahead than most kids her age. She can read and spell her name in Russian and English, can read basic sentences in Russian, though she needs more help with English, and she has very little problem with numbers.

Bucky writes down series of words in English and Russian, and draws pictures to get her to match them up. She gets to family, and he’s drawn a man, a woman, and a child in stick figures. He wrinkles his nose at his own old-fashionedness. Nina frowns at the image, and crosses it out. She matches the Russian word to the English, and then draws two stick figure men, one with only one arm and one with two, and a smaller stick figure with curly hair. She connects the words to her drawing, rather than his, and Bucky calls over Steve.

“Clever girl, Nina!” He congratulates, and runs his hand over her hair.

“Papa,” Nina points to the stick figure with only one arm. “Nina,” she points to the child, “and Dad,” she points to the other man.

“Dad?” Steve asks, and Nina frowns.

“That’s what Dr Bruce said.” Bucky winces and Steve bites his lip. It’s a sharp reminder that Nina only calls Bucky ‘papa’ because she was told to.

“Only if you want, Nina. You only have to call me dad if you want,” Steve tells her, and it’s almost imperceptible but there’s a tiny shake in his voice. Yet again, they underestimate Nina, because she notices it too and frowns. She reaches up for Steve, and he lifts her. She places a hand on his cheek, and he leans into it.

“Dad,” Nina confirms, and then she turns to Bucky. He’s close enough that she can put her hand on his cheek just like she did with Steve. “Papa.”

They eat, and while Bucky washes up (well, he puts things in the dishwasher, but no one judges a one armed man for using technology and making his life easier), Steve introduces her to cartoons. She’s mesmerised by Dora the Explorer, and by the end of two episodes she can count to five in Spanish.

They surreptitiously weigh her as Steve carries her while she brushes her teeth (Bucky sends the results to Banner and he responds with a thumbs up and ‘don’t forget her exercises’) and they change her into pyjamas in her new bedroom. Bucky explains that she has to do her exercises, and she’s nervous until he shows her every single picture that Bruce has sent, explaining what to do. She looks around at the yellow room as Steve lays her down on her back and stretches her legs to Bucky’s instructions. When they’re done, Nina asks for Myagkiy and the chicken story, which Bucky rushes to get for her from where they were left in the living room. She sits on the bed, clutching the rabbit and her book, and looks expectantly at the two of them.

“Who do you want to read to you?” Bucky asks, gesturing between him and Steve.

“Dad,” she decides, after only a moment. Steve sits in the rocking chair, and reads to Nina while Bucky leaves to tidy up a bit, and pick up his arm. He leaves it in the bedroom and changes into pyjamas, and when he gets back Nina is asleep as Steve rocks her. He gets up, and Nina holds onto him when she wakes up from the disturbance.

“Don’t go,” she whimpers, so Steve carries her across the hall to his and Bucky’s bedroom. Nina’s bed is just slightly too small for the three of them to be comfortable.

“Steve, is that- Steve is it a good idea- I mean you’re fine but do you think I should go sleep in her room?” Bucky asks. He has bad nights. Really bad nights- the kind that end with Steve having a black eye and Bucky shaking and crying on the other side of the bedroom door because he doesn’t want to hurt him again.

“It’ll be fine,” Steve says, in a voice that makes Bucky want to believe him.

Bucky lays down a towel on the sheet, just in case Nina has an accident again, and the three of them settle down for the night, Nina in between the two of them. It’s only eight, but Bucky is exhausted.

“She called me dad,” Steve says over Nina’s head, and he’s grinning at Bucky.

“Congratulations, old man,” Bucky teases, and Steve doesn’t even pout, he’s too happy. They talk for a bit more, deciding on what to do tomorrow, and then Steve texts Natasha to check that she’s at home tomorrow. She is. It’s ten when they fall asleep, and one in the morning when Nina wakes up again because she wet the bed. Bucky changes the sheets, Steve washes her down, and by two they’re all in bed again, Nina curled up on Bucky’s chest as she cries.

“It’s alright, darlin’, nothin’s gonna hurt you no more,” Steve whispers to her as he pats her back. His voice is thick with sleep and his Brooklynite twang is back.

“ _Nightmares, little one?”_ Bucky asks in Russian, and she nods, finally giving them a signal as to what’s wrong. Bucky mouths ‘nightmares’ to Steve, and he nods grimly.

“Nina darlin’, ya wanna know a secret?” Steve asks, and the only indication that she’s listening is that her shaking reduces to little trembles.  
“Your Papa is real good at scarin’ away nightmares. He scares away all of mine. Gives me a hug and a kiss and poof! They run off. They’re scared of him because he’s big and strong and he loves me _so much_ that it scares them away.”

Both Nina and Bucky turn to him- Bucky’s looking at Steve like he’s lost his mind, and Nina looks curious. She turns back to her Papa and puts a hand on his face to make him look at her.

“You scare away my nightmares?”

“Anything for you, sweetheart.”

“You love me _so much_?” She asks, and says the last words the exact same way Steve did. She sounds surprised.

“I love you to the moon and back,” Bucky says. He’s known Nina for two days, and he would do anything for her. Maybe after seventy years of No Feelings, they’re hitting him like a truck all at once and it’s not really rational, but he doesn’t really care.

“Same here, sweetheart,” Steve tells her, and her eyes droop as he rubs soothing patterns on her back. “We love you so much.”

Soon, they’re all asleep, with Nina still on Bucky’s chest, and Steve curled protectively around the two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked it!


	4. N.I.N.A Legs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony's been busy working on a surprise for Nina, and she's asking more and more questions.

They have quickly established a routine. Nina wakes up as early as Steve, so he gets her up and changes her and feeds her, and by five thirty Bucky is up and Steve goes for his morning run. Bucky and Nina sit and watch cartoons, do her exercises, and he drinks coffee strong enough that the smell doesn’t dissipate until at least midday. By seven, Steve is back and they he eats (again) with Bucky while Nina plays, and by eight the three of them are ready for whatever the day has to bring them.

At first, Nina hates Jarvis. She doesn’t like it that a disembodied voice is talking to her, because it’s like in the lab, she tells Bucky, but soon she gets used to him after Jarvis downloads every single Disney movie for her, and makes sure Dora the Explorer is available at all times.

They go to therapy and Nina sits and draws and does puzzles, and Dr Goldstein talks to her and Bucky and Steve in the same patience-of-a-saint tone. Nina relaxes into it, if Steve thinks anything of it he doesn’t say, but Bucky feels like he’s being patronised and coddled. Just doesn’t sit right with him. Nina talks, in a jumble of Russian and English, about the videos of her Papa that they used to show her, how he was a great soldier, and she was going to grow up to be just like him, once they fixed her legs so she could walk again. She didn’t like it when they tried, though, because it made her bones hurt. All three of the adults winced at that.

“You definitely don’t have to be a soldier like Papa,” Steve had said to her afterwards.

“I’m not a soldier like that anymore, sweetheart. So you definitely don’t have to be.”

“What about Captain America? Who’s stopping him?”

Tony sends them a wheelchair for Nina by day three with her. It’s black and light blue, with a soft back and seat that he promised has been designed to avoid pressure sores. He sends a tiny pair of leather gloves as well, so she doesn’t hurt her hands when she’s wheeling around. They spend the afternoon that day teaching Nina how to wheel around the apartment, and she cries when she realises she can move around on her own again. She can even lift herself in and out of the chair without hurting herself. But she still prefers to sit on the floor when she plays, and she likes being carried when she’s not in at home.

Natasha and Wanda visit, sometimes multiple times a day, and they sit on the floor with Nina and chatter away to her, reading her stories and showing her how to use the toys. Nina gets a little braver, and she talks to them both, and all three of them switch languages faster than lightning. Steve tells Bucky that he’s going to have to teach him some Russian.

The visits from Natasha and Wanda turn out to be more effective than therapy.

“You’re Black Widow,” Nina says to Natasha on their third visit (day six of Nina staying with them), and all the adults go quiet. Nina is sat on Wanda’s crossed legs, and Wanda was teaching Bucky and Steve how to braid Nina’s hair. Natasha is sat across from them, holding Nina’s toys for her.

“You’re not like they said you would be. Neither is Papa.” Bucky’s flesh hand shakes on his knee, and Steve takes it in his to calm him down. “They said you’d be mean, and you wouldn’t like it if I cried. But you’re not mean. You play with me. Papa said he loves me.”

“They lied to you little one, just like they lied to me and Wanda,” Natasha says calmly, and Wanda agrees.

“But why?” Nina sounds so betrayed, and Bucky and Steve squeeze their hands together. Before they can talk, Wanda interjects, as she finishes the French braid on the left of Nina’s head, tying it off with a hairband so the two braids matched.

“Because bad people do not care what they have to do to get what they want, they just do it. That means they lie and hurt you and you have to remember that Nina. Whatever they tell you, it was not true.”

“So I am good?”

“Yes. Very good.”

“And the avengers are good?”

“Yes. They work to save everyone from the bad people- like the people that hurt your legs.”

“And the Winter Soldier and Black Widow are bad?”

“No, sweetheart- Black Widow is good, remember? Black Widow is Natasha, and we like Natasha.”

“She sings nursery rhymes,” Nina says, as if that is the definition of being good. “But what about the Winter Soldier? Is he bad? Because he’s my Papa and he’s not bad.”

“Nina, love,” Steve says as he pulls away from Bucky and sits next to her. Nina and Bucky are looking at each other very intently. “Remember what we said the other day, with Dr Goldstein? About Papa not being a soldier like that anymore?”

“Yes. So he’s good now?”

“Yes, baby, he’s the best now,” Steve says and gives Bucky a smile so bright it could blind him. Bucky gulps, and swallows his reply. He is not a good man, but he needs to set an example for Nina. Nina goes quiet and goes back to playing.

“How did they hurt you?” She asks Natasha a little later, who does not even blink at the question.

“They lied to me, just like they lied to you. And they put funny injections in my body, same as you.”

“What about Wanda?”

“You’ll have to ask her.”

Nina turns to Wanda, and the young redhead purses her lips for a minute as she tries to decide what to say.

“Have you heard of The Twins?” she asks, and Nina shakes her head. Wanda breathes a sigh of relief. She’d been saved from learning about that trauma.

“Well, they lied to me like they lied to Natasha and you and your Papa. And they tried to hurt me by giving me magic, but instead it just made me stronger.”

“They gave you _magic?”_ Nina asks, her eyes as wide as saucers. Wanda’s lips turn up in a tiny smile.

“Would you like me to show you?” Nina nods enthusiastically, and asks if it was magic like in Cinderella, which she’d watched the day before. Wanda laughed, and said she wasn’t sure if she could turn a pumpkin into a carriage, but maybe one day she would try. Instead, she waves her fingers, and Nina’s Myagkiy rises up off the floor and waves at her. Nina does not laugh, but she does smile when she waves hello back. Steve takes a photo.

In the evenings, they watch a movie or read with Nina after they eat, and then they do her exercises and put her to bed. She sleeps in their bed with them, and they realise a little late that it’s because she’s scared of being chained to her own bed again. They carry her into her room after that, and let her inspect the whole room to show that there are no handcuffs, and that they will never, ever do something like that to her. She still sleeps in their bed with them because it’s safer between the two of them, and they really do not mind.

The evening after Natasha and Wanda visit, and have explained to Nina all that they have, she refuses to sleep.

“Daddy,” she whispers, patting Steve’s face because he has his eyes closed and she wants his full attention.

“Yes, Nina?”

“Are the avengers good?”

“Yes, darlin’, the avengers are good,” he says, and kisses her palm.

“But how do you know?”

“Natasha is an avenger,” Bucky says, and Nina immediately rolls over to look at him too.

“But Natasha is Black Widow,” Nina says, not quite making the connection.

“And Black Widow is an avenger.”

“Is the Winter Soldier an avenger?”

“Not yet,” Steve says, before Bucky can tell her otherwise. She eventually falls asleep. The next morning, however, the questioning continues while Steve is out on his run.

“Is Captain America good?”

“Yes, Nina, Captain America is good.”

“Even if he took all the serum that would make my legs work?” She asks quietly, and Bucky’s heart breaks.

“He didn’t take the serum, sweetheart, a doctor gave it to him, and then got rid of the rest of it. It was an experiment- to make him better. He was very sick- he had a bad back and bad lungs and eyes and ears and his feet hurt just from walking. The serum they gave you- they were trying to make the same one they gave Captain America. But it only worked a little bit- because it made your back better but not your legs.”

“I’m an experiment.”

“No, Nina,” he tells her a little harsher than intended, because she looks up at him with wide eyes. She’s not scared, just shocked, and Bucky allows himself to breathe. “You are not an experiment. You are a person, you hear me?”

“Yes Papa.”

Steve comes home at that point, and he takes a shower and then joins them for breakfast. He gets the same line of questions from Nina, and he answers in the exact same way as Bucky.

 “So Captain America is good?” Steve tells her to stay where she is, and runs off to their bedroom. Bucky can hear him shuffling around, and Nina is wriggling in her chair in anticipation. Steve comes into the kitchen, dressed in his full Captain America gear. Nina’s eyes go wide.

“Where’s my dad?” She asks, and she sounds scared, and her voice trembles with her effort not to cry, but she’s glaring at Steve like she could take him down with her glare alone. She does, however, reach for Bucky, so he takes her tiny hand in his. Steve smiles, and pull off the helmet, and Nina just stares at him, slack jawed.

“Right here, darlin’,” he says, but he doesn’t get any closer to her.

“Dad?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“You’re Captain America.”

“I am,” he teases her with a smile, but Nina just looks at him and Bucky can practically hear her thinking.

“You’re good, dad,” she settles on, and Steve just nods. “So Captain America must be good.” Honestly Bucky had not expected her to be so accepting of any of this. She’d been with HYDRA for an eighth of her life, but whatever they’d tried to programme into her hadn’t worked. She’d been so trusting of strangers that were good to her, and she wasn’t crying at the sight or the idea of the avengers being the people who were nice to her. It had barely been a week. Bucky bit his lip- maybe they needed to talk to Banner about Nina’s brain. Maybe Natasha- she knew first-hand how the Red Room worked. Maybe he needs to read over her file again.

Nina is making a grabbing motion at Steve, and he lifts her into her arms. She’s breathing hard and slow, like she’s trying to stop herself from panicking. She very carefully places her hands on either side of his face, and he smiles at her.

“Hi Daddy,” she says, like it’s a question.

“Hi Nina,” he says back, and kisses her hands. She nods, and then asks if he’ll play with her- as Daddy, not Captain America- she makes that very clear. Steve sits her in her chair, and she wheels after him to watch the transformation of Captain to Dad. It seems to clear her head.

Bucky is definitely going to have to read her file again.

On day seven, they got a call telling them to head to Tony’s lab. He had a surprise for Nina. For someone who kept on insisting that he did not like children, he was doting on her.

Before they could even knock, Tony was holding open the door to his lab. Thankfully, Tony was an ass who insisted on building and using only his own equipment, so nothing looked like medical equipment, and was likely to set off Nina.

“Morning Barnes-Rogers’! I’m glad you could make it to my little corner of the world!” Tony left the door, indicating that he wanted them to follow him through the maze of nonsense that was his lab. Half of the contraptions just looked like tangled wires, and Bucky couldn’t tell what the hell any of them were for. The lab itself was huge, with crash mats and landing spaces at the far end of the room.

Bucky rolled his eyes, and Nina had tried to hide from Tony’s loud voice, but was quickly distracted by the blinking lights and machinery. Steve was whispering quietly to her as he took her into the lab, explaining that Tony was their friend (Bucky begrudgingly admitted that he was- he’d built him an arm, after all. Though, it was sort of an obligatory apology after he removed the initial one. Which really, Bucky was grateful for. It was a complicated relationship.)

“Mornin’ Tony-” Steve started, but when Tony turned around, he paused and narrowed his eyes at him “Have you slept?” Steve asked sceptically, looking at Tony’s eyes. His beard was perfectly groomed, as always, and his clothes looked clean, but the bags under his eyes were more like suitcases.

“I had a nap,” Tony replied with a vague hand wave. He didn’t say when or where. Bucky suspected Pepper had been sleeping in a bed alone for the past few days. “So I got the measurements from Banner, and I did the wheelchair days ago so you can definitely take that home," it seemed that he'd forgotten he'd sent it to them already, "but I’ve also been working on- hey kid _don’t touch that_!”

Bucky followed Stark’s horrified expression. Steve had set Nina down in her chair, which Bucky had been wheeling along just in case she decided she wanted it, and was letting her explore a bit. She was rolling around, with Steve not more than a foot away, looking at all the different robots that were half way to done. Apparently Tony only functioned by doing several thousand projects at once. Nina had paused in front of Rhodey’s legs- the first prototype Tony had made, and had been about to stroke her hand over them. At Stark’s tone, she drew her hand away and her lip started to tremble. Steve was immediately at her side, patting her back, trying to get her to calm down, and Bucky was glaring at Tony, who looked more alarmed than anything as he stared at Nina.

“I only meant those ones aren’t for you!” He insisted, and Nina cocked her head to the side, much the same way Steve did when he didn’t understand something. Steve’s eyebrows were so high up his forehead they may as well have blended into his hair line. Bucky simply shrugged.

“Tony what did you do?” He asked, and instead of replying, the engineer was tapping away at his tablet, and a robot appears around the corner. Both Steve and Bucky’s jaw drops at the sight of what the robot is carrying.

“Legs,” Tony mutters, not looking up from his tablet as he headed toward a set of tiny bars, much like the ones Rhodey had had to practice on when he was learning to walk again. These were Nina sized. The robot followed after him, as did Bucky and Steve and Nina.

“So, kid,” Tony said, turning around and bending down in front of her. He studied her for a moment, and she did the same. When he raised an eyebrow at her, she tried to copy him, and Tony grinned, and turned back to the legs. “These are nerve impulse nanorobotic aid legs- ”

“N.I.N.A legs? You called them Nina legs?”

“Yes I’m working on it but that’s it for now so shut up and listen, Barnes.” Bucky grinned, and Nina was too busy gaping at the legs to even notice what was going on. “As I was saying- the legs work by connecting the nerves in Nina’s spine to the ones in her leg by using the electrical impulses on her skin so it’s less invasive than your arm, Buckaroo, but the concept isn’t too far off. The metal work does what her brain says, and then moves her legs for her, or it should do anyway-” Tony got interrupted a second time, but by Nina.  Steve was valiantly trying not to laugh as Tony spluttered. It wasn’t working.

“Are those for me?”

“Yes, kid, you see anyone else that small in here? Honestly what is wrong with you Rogers-Barnes’-”

“I thought we were Barnes-Rogers?” Steve teased, and Tony scowled.

“You won’t be anything if you keep interrupting me.”

“Barnes-Rogers. The man with the eyepatch said so,” Nina said to Tony, looking up at him with wide eyes. Fury had called them a few days ago to let them know that legally, Nina was their child- they’d changed her name and all to avoid any confusion from authorities, and a package with a passport for her and a copy of the adoption papers and her birth certificate had been delivered to their door.

“Look, kid, do you wanna learn how to walk again or not?” He asked Nina, and she sucked in a breath.

“Yes.”

They had to take off her dungarees (her favourite item of clothing, they’d discovered) which did not result in as much fussing as when Bruce came to see her, and Steve had to hold her up as Tony fitted the legs to Nina one at a time. They were not attached to each other, and did not cover her legs completely, and they climbed up over her hips to the base of her back. They only complaint she had was that the metal was cold. Stark mumbled something about not being able to please everyone. Bucky kneeled in front of her, talking about anything and everything to distract her so she didn’t freak out as Tony went through the complex process of unhooking and re-hooking and unhooking the legs again from the docking base. He said after the first session, this nonsense wouldn’t be necessary. She wouldn’t even need help putting them on. Five minutes later, Tony stepped away, and Steve was carrying Nina over to the crash mates. Bucky was glad they’d tied her hair up in bunches to keep out of her face.

The legs were made out of tiny interlocking pieces, so they clung to Nina like cloth. She was comfortably able to sit down on the crash mat, in between Steve and Bucky.

“Papa we match!”

“We sure do, Nina.”

“Alright, kid, try moving your foot. You gotta think about it really hard.”

They waited with baited breath, but nothing happened. Nina’s little face was bunched up into a frown, her tongue sticking out between her teeth.

“I can’t.”

Tony frowns, and reaches for his tablet, his fingers practically flying across the screen.

“Try again. Try moving your leg.”

It takes a minute or so, but she does. Her leg rises and drops back down at the knee, and Nina smiles, wider than Steve and Bucky have seen her smile before.

“I did it!”

“You did Nina! Well done you!” Bucky grins and Steve’s eyes are filled with unshed tears. They both shower her with kisses, and Nina actually laughs. It’s a quiet giggle, but it was there, and Steve has to rub his eyes with the palms of his hands. Tony doesn’t seem to know what to do.

“Do it again, kid,” is all he manages to say.

Ten minutes later, Nina is able to flex her toes, bend and stretch her legs, and lift them, one at a time, off the ground. Every time she manages a little movement, she laughs she’s so pleased with herself, and eventually it makes Tony crack a smile.

Half an hour goes by, and Nina can crawl around on her hands and knees, and if she has help, she can stand.

“Kid, let go of your dad,” Tony tells her. She’s standing between Steve’s legs, so he can catch her if she falls, and she’s gripping his shoulders so that most of her weight is on him.  Bucky is crouched behind Steve on his left side, and Tony is crouched by his right. 

“No.”

“C’mon kid, you wanna walk or not?” Tony says hotly, and Nina doesn’t shy away, just glares at him- which is a new reaction that takes everyone a minute to get used to.

“No.”

“Nina, _milaya,”_ Bucky says to her from over Steve’s shoulder, and she looked at him with a glare only slightly softer than the one she’d been giving Tony. “You need to let go of Steve so you can stand up by yourself.”

“If I fall over it will hurt!”

“Well, Dad and me and Uncle Tony will be there to catch you to make sure that doesn’t happen-” and he doesn’t realise why Nina flinches until she says, very quietly:

“ _Uncle_?” She asks in Russian, and Steve knows enough to quickly tell her that that’s not what Bucky meant.

“No, baby, not like that.” Nina turns to Tony with wide eyes, and he’s looking at Bucky with a confused expression. “Not like Uncle in Russia. He was not your uncle- he was Dr Babichev-”

“Like Dr Bruce?” Nina asks, and she’s panicking so much that she collapses into Steve. He’s fast, and soon she’s sitting across his lap, clutching his shirt as she looks up at him.

“No, no, not like Dr Bruce- Bruce is a good doctor. Dr Babichev, _Uncle,_ was a bad doctor. And he was not your Uncle- an uncle is part of your family. Remember what Wanda said about bad people telling lies?”

Nina nods. “They do what they want to get what they want. And they don’t care about anyone else.”

“Yeah.”

“So, not all doctors are bad, like Dr Babichev, and uncles are not people who hurt your legs,” Nina says, and it’s half way to a question, but before Bucky or Steve can answer that yes, she’s got that right, she turns to Tony. “Uncles are family that try to make them better.”

Tony falls back, hard, from his crouching position and lands painfully on his backside. Bucky looks at him questioningly, but Tony just shakes his head.

“Yup,” is all he says, but it seems enough to cement the idea in her mind, because she wriggles against Steve and soon she’s standing up, using his shoulders to support herself.

“Daddy put your hands out.”

“Yes Miss Nina,” he teases, and she doesn’t rise to it, just takes his hands in hers. Tony seems to have caught up with everything, and shakes his head again before looking down at his tablet and then up again.

“Alright let go of one hand.”

She does, and there’s a moment where her knees bend and Bucky immediately has his metal hand ready to catch her, but the legs don’t collapse, and soon she’s standing tall again. Without prompting, she lets go of Steve’s hand, and she’s standing alone.

“I’m doing it!”

“Go Nina!” The encouragement comes from Tony, and she gives him a shy smile.

“Alright, Tin Man, go stand opposite Capsicle and see if Tiny can make it to you.”

Nina holds Steve’s hands, and tentatively, she takes a step toward Bucky. He whoops and she laughs, and she takes three steps to him before collapsing in his arms.

“Jarvis are you getting this?” Tony asks quietly, a few steps away from the family. Nina is now clutching onto Bucky’s metal arm and walking to Steve, who’s waiting for her with open arms. He shuffles back every time she almost reaches him, making her take one more step. She squeals and calls after him, and the three of them are filling the lab with laughter.

“I am, sir, would you like me to put the recording with the others?”

“Make a new file called ‘Nina’. Accessible to all Avengers. And Fury.”

“Of course, sir.” The AI is quiet for only a moment. “It can be found alongside ‘Bartons’ in the database.”

“Thank you, Jarvis.”

“You’re quite welcome.”

After fifteen minutes, Nina is tired from exerting herself, and so Tony shows the three of them how to take the legs on and off. Nina pouts when they get taken away from her.

“Can’t I keep them?”

“I have to make a few adjustments,” Tony says, trying to avoid looking at her before he caves. “Then you can have them.”

“Okay.”

Nina hoists herself into her chair, but she’s tired and Steve has to push her.

“Bye Uncle Tony!” She calls over her shoulder, and then with a little prompt from Steve, “thank you!”

“You’re welcome, kid,” he says, and he almost forgets that Bucky is there until he turns and bumps into his chest.

“Jesus Christ, man, can you not-”

“Thank you. You didn’t gave to make the legs. Thank you for doing that for her.” Tony looks at him, and he can’t quite deal with the sincerity he sees.

“No problem, not a big deal, just messing around-”

“Jeez can you not just take the gratitude? Thought you and your big ego would appreciate it,” Bucky says, and he’s smirking. Tony rolls his eyes.

“Get out of my lab, Barnes.”

Bucky salutes him and leaves.

 

Bucky and Steve invite Bruce and Natasha to dinner that day, partially because he wants to check up on Nina, and partly because they have questions about her brain. Bruce makes sure to bring her file. When they’re sat down at the table, eating spaghetti and meatballs the same way Winnifred Barnes used to make them, the way she taught all of her children by the time they were twelve, Nina decides that she’s going to strike up conversation with Bruce, having mostly ignored him all evening.

“Dr Bruce are you my uncle?”

Bruce swallows nervously, looking to Steve and Bucky for direction. Both of them are looking at Nina, however, and Bruce stretches his collar away from his neck.

“Um-”

“Like Uncle Tony. Not Dr Babichev. Because Dr Babichev wasn’t really my uncle or a good doctor.”

“Then I suppose I am, yes.”

“Does that make Natasha my aunty?”

“If you want, Nina,” Natasha says, and she winks at Nina before slurping her spaghetti into her mouth. The three men in the room are quite sure that they’ve never seen Natasha do anything so undignified in her life, and it has Nina is fits of giggles.

“ _It’s good to hear you laugh,”_ Natasha says to her quietly across the table.

“ _I’m happy, you laugh when you’re happy.”_

After dinner, Bruce and Nina sit on the floor and he talks to her about her exercises and her metal legs and she’s so beside herself with excitement she doesn’t even complain as Bucky takes off her dungarees so Bruce can inspect her legs.

Eventually, Nina falls asleep having worn herself out after such a long day. Natasha cuddles her in the rocking chair, which they’d moved to the living room days before because Nina liked to be rocked and read to.

“You said you had questions about her brain?” Bruce asks quietly, and Bucky nods grimly.

“We were just wondering about her progress.”

“She seems like she’s doing just fine-”

“That’s the thing. It took me a good part of a year to overcome what HYDRA did to me. How come she’s so okay so quickly?”

“You, James, were under their control for seventy years,” Natasha says to him, a delicate eyebrow raised. Nina sighed heavily against her chest.

“What about you?”

“More than a week.”

“See?”

“But I was being trained a lot longer than she was. By actual HYDRA. Babichev wasn’t one of them, he hadn’t been trained to be like one of them.”

“He had a degree in psychiatry,” Steve pointed out, but Natasha just shook her head.

“He has nothing on the Red Room. Nothing.” The tone of her voice doesn’t allow for argument.

“Well,” Bruce begins, but he pauses and flicks through her file, focusing on a couple of sentences at a time and then reading ahead. “She’d only four,” he states, as if that’s an explanation in itself. Steve gives him a look, and he continues. “Children’s brains are quick to adapt- neuroplasticity- it’s easier and easier the younger you are. That’s why it was so easy for them to teach her English in such a short time frame. But it might be something to do with the serum-”

“The serum?”

“Yeah,” he turns to Steve, who had asked the question. “You said you were able to read faster and do basic maths and things a helluva lot faster than before right? And we’ve seen that Nina is something else- she’s a smart kid- smarter than most- and in two languages.”

“So?”

“So maybe the serum did something to her brain as well. It’s entirely possible that it’s able to heal itself faster and make new connections faster than anyone else- your skin heals faster than anything I’ve seen before, so maybe it’s the same with her brain. Because she heals pretty quickly as well- the bruises on her legs were pretty bad, but you told me they’d disappeared after two days.”

“But if her brain can heal itself,” Bucky asks, “then what about her legs?”

“Somethings gotta give,” Bruce says with a defeated shrug. “I can’t actually tell you. There’s not enough to go on in her file and I’m not putting her through testing to figure it out.” Bucky nods curtly. _Good. No invasive testing._ “Whatever it is, I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Bruce says, and there’s a confidence in his voice that usually isn’t there, so Bucky and Steve take his word for it. Natasha smiles at him warmly.

They bid their guests goodnight, change Nina, and soon the three of them are in bed.

“She’s gonna be okay, right?”

“More than okay, Buck. She’ll be great,” Steve promised with a soft kiss.

Steve was asleep sooner than Bucky, and soon he was left alone with his thoughts, watching his family sleep next to him.

They’d be okay. He’d promised Sarah Rogers, all those years ago, that Bucky would look after Steve, and he’d promised his own mother that he’d be a better man than his father. So he’d keep those promises, and look after his family with all that he was.


	5. The One With Thor's Hammer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nina meets Barton's kids, and has late night discussions with her dads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments and kudos everyone! I'm so glad you're liking it!

“Uncle Sam!” Nina yelled, and Bucky winced at the loud noise. For such a tiny person, she had a very impressive set of lungs. Nina ran to Sam, past all the cars and motorbikes that were stored in the work room, tripping a couple of times when the legs couldn’t keep up with her, but eventually she got to him and managed to wrap her arms around his knees. You’d think she hadn’t seen him in years- she saw him yesterday.

“Hey there Nina! How’s are the legs treating you?” Sam was laughing, and he carefully picked her up. Nina had officially been with them for twenty two days now (yes, he was counting because really he couldn’t believe it) and she was falling in love with the avengers as fast as they were falling in love with her. It was obvious why, Bucky supposed. She’d gone from being in a foster home to a HYDRA facility. This was the only family she’d had- the only ones to properly show her love- and even if he did say so himself, they were doing a good job.

“Same as yesterday- they don’t pinch and aren’t sore on my back any more but I still was in my chair _all morning_ ,” she lamented, turning to Bucky with a doleful expression. Bruce had suggested that they switch between the two modes of transportation for Nina, so she didn’t become totally dependent on one or the other- as she grew, the legs would have to grow with her, and Tony would have to take them for days at a time and they didn’t want her to feel stuck when it happened. Bucky simply raised an eyebrow at his daughter ( _his daughter_ \- he still got excited whenever he thought or heard those words- words he thought he’d never get to say) but he couldn’t help the tiny smile.

“Honestly what’s your papa like, hm?” Sam said, with a roll of his eyes, and much to Bucky’s shock, Nina copied him. His four year old daughter had _rolled her eyes_ at him. All he could do was open and close his mouth like a fish.

“Hey there guppy,” Steve teased as he entered the room, wiping the grease off his hands onto his trousers as he gave Bucky a kiss on the cheek. “Nina what did you do to Papa?”

Nina rolled her eyes again in demonstration, before bursting into a fit of giggles. Steve gasped in pretend shock.

“Well I never!” Bucky couldn’t help but notice how much he sounded like his mum when he and Steve had come back home covered in mud and bruises- which was more often than not. “Nina Barnes-Rogers being cheeky! Who’d’a thunk, huh Buck?” Steve was waggling his eyebrows at him, and this time Bucky rolled his eyes. Steve was ridiculous sometimes.

“Daddy what were you doing?” Nina asked, tugging at his t shirt. At some point, she’d wriggled out of Sam’s arms and made her way over to her parents. Steve picked her up and placed her on his shoulders, much to Nina’s delight.

“Fixing my bike.”

Nina bent down so her chin was by his temple, and if he looked up, he’d be able to see her.

“Why don’t you just get Uncle Tony’s robots to do it?”

“Because I like fixing it myself.”

 

“But you smell funny.”

“Thanks for that, Nina,” Steve grouched, reaching up to pull her off his shoulders so he could tickle her. Her squawks of laughter filled the room, and Bucky couldn’t help but think that they looked like something out of a movie- the mechanic dad, who was so good looking it was sinful, with jeans that hung too low and a t shirt that rose up just a little too high, and the genius daughter who could win anyone over by batting her eyelashes. His chest tightened- he wasn’t good enough for them. But then Nina was calling out for him, and Steve was smiling at him, and the thought was pushed to the back of his mind for the moment.

“Papa Papa Papa Papa Papa-” Nina was saying over and over, until it didn’t really sound like a word any more.

“Nina Nina Nina Nina Nina,” Bucky teased, pulling her into his arms for a hug. She wrapped her arms around his middle, like a baby koala, and he squeezed her close. “What’s this for?”

“You smell nice. Dad doesn’t.”

“Oh, well then, I’m glad I’m useful to the little princess,” he griped. “It’s not like you love me, no I’m only useful for the smell of my clothes!”

“And cuddles!” Nina insisted, holding him tighter. She had a strong grip. She didn’t say that she loved him. She hadn’t said that to anyone yet.

“The Bartons and Thor have arrived, sirs and Miss Nina,” Jarvis announced to them, and Nina frowned.

“Thank you, Jarvis, we’ll be right up,” Steve said, and he slung an arm around Bucky’s shoulders as they headed to the elevators so they could go and meet their friends. Sam was soon at Steve’s side, and the three of them were rocketing up to the top of the tower.

“What’s up Nina?” Sam asked, the only one able to see her frown over Bucky’s shoulder.

“Who’s the Bartons and Thor?”

“Well Thor is an avenger- remember we showed you a picture?” Steve prompted, and Nina nodded. “You haven’t met Thor, so he’s coming to see you, and the Bartons are Uncle Clint” Nina interrupted to tell Steve that Uncle Clint was _great_ because he taught her to make funny noises but blowing raspberries on her arm, and then she proceeded to demonstrate. Bucky was so glad she had good adult influences in life. “So yes Uncle Clint has a wife and children, so they thought they’d all come to see you, because you met Uncle Clint but not his family.”

“To see me?” 

“Yup!”

“Wow,” Nina breathed, as she did every time she learned that people wanted to meet her, or had any interest in what she had to say. Bucky smiled into her hair.

“Uncle Clint is great,” Nina said, absentmindedly, and Sam narrowed his eyes at her.

“Not as great as me, right? I’m your favourite.”

“I can’t have _favourites_ Uncle Sam,” Nina chastised, and Bucky snorted.

“Nah you are,” Sam said, and Steve gave him a look as if to say _excuse me?_ “as long as I’m the favourite.”

Nina hummed in thought, and then gave him a wicked grin. “My favourite is Aunty Natasha, we have a _secret code_ in _Russian!_ ”

“Aw man are you kidding me? I lose out in a favourite uncle contest, to Natasha?”

“Sorry man, that’s the way the cookie crumbles,” Steve laughed, slapping his friend on the back. The elevator stopped at the Barnes-Rogers apartment, and three got out so they could respectively change and collect toys before they went upstairs. Nina was off, sprinting to her room to collect everything she needed. She was apprehensive about meeting new people- especially new children. She hadn’t talked to someone her age for nearly seven months.

Steve was in the shower, and Bucky sat on the sofa, his knee bouncing as he clenched his hands together. It was always in quiet moments that fear snuck up on him. What if he wasn’t good enough for Steve? What if he wasn’t good enough for Nina? What if he had a _bad day_ and he accidentally hurt either of them?

He was only pulled out of his whirlwind of thoughts by a large hand between his shoulder blades, and the sofa sinking next to him. Steve smelt of clean laundry and soap- it was grounding.

“Hey, love, everything okay?” The question was so soft he wanted to cry.

 _Boys don’t cry._  
Emotion is weakness.  
He took a deep breath and pushed the thoughts out of his head. Boys didn’t exactly live for a hundred years and still look thirty two, or raise children with other boys but look where he was now.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” he lied. Steve simply raised an eyebrow. Of course he knew Bucky was lying. So he covered it with an actual truth. “I’m just worried about Nina. She hasn’t talked to anyone her age in seven months, Stevie. _Seven months._ That’s a helluva long time.”

“We’ll take it slow today. Nathaniel is Nina’s age- and he’s pretty calm for a kid of five, so she should be alright.”

“Yeah. Yeah you’re right she’s a good kid she’ll be fine.”

Steve smiled at him, and took Bucky’s hand in his, running his calloused thumb over Bucky’s knuckles. _Can I kiss you?_ It had become their signal, after Nina had asked why Steve kept on asking.

“ _Because it’s polite to ask,”_ Steve had said, matter-of-factly, which Nina had deemed a decent enough answer. _Because Papa needs to have autonomy over his own body and mind,_ was left unsaid. She still made a ‘ _yuck’_ sound every time they did kiss, thanks to Tony’s teachings, however, but it was kind of cute.  It was ‘ _yuck’_ not because it was two men, but because it was her parents. A perfectly acceptable reaction. Bucky revelled in it every time.

He kissed Steve, with a hand on his jaw, and it was blissful for all of five seconds, until Nina announced very loudly that it was time to _go,_ and they were being far too slow for her liking.

“Hear that, Buck? The princess wants to go,” Steve murmured against his lips, with a smile that revealed dimples. Bucky grinned back.

“Alright, alright! We’re coming!”

Nina was unusually quiet as they made their way up to the common room at the top of the tower. It had become a communal living space for them- the highlight of Nina’s _life_ was when they had movie nights and watched Disney films with her.

When they got there, Nina had clung to Bucky and refused to let go, even to say hello to the people she knew. To be quite honest, it was quite overwhelming. Steve was huge, and a tall blonde man even bigger than him was probably a bit much. Thor was just a bit much. The Bartons, also, were quite a lot in one go. Clint and his wife, Laura, had managed to have five children. Five. Who even had that many kids in the future? There was actual helpful medicine now that Clint could most definitely afford.

“Papa,” Nina whispered, asking for him to pick her up. He did, and the two of them headed for a seat at the back of the room, away from the chaos of greetings that Steve had been hauled into. Nina was quiet, so Bucky took the opportunity to do introductions. Maybe if she knew who everyone was, she wouldn’t feel so nervous. The man talking to Natasha was Thor. The lady holding the baby next to Uncle Clint and Sam was Laura, and the baby was Nicole. The oldest boy, ( _thirteen is like a grown up, Papa)_ with floppy hair that he kept on brushing out of his eyes (what even were teenage hairstyles nowadays?) was Cooper, and the stroppy eleven year old in combat boots was Lila. Nathaniel was the little boy in the pink tutu, he was Nina’s age ( _I’m four and three quarters, he’s five, Papa there’s a difference)_ and Callum was the three year old running around with a toy bow and arrow.

“ _What if they don’t like me?”_ Nina asked, in Russian. She only spoke to him in only Russian when she was nervous. Bucky sighed and kissed the top of her head.

“That, Nina, is not possible. They’ll love you.”

“As much as you love me?”

“No one loves you as much as I love you.”

“What about Daddy?”

“Okay _maybe_ Daddy loves you as much as I do,” he agrees, and that gets a smile out of Nina. He brushes his nose against hers, and she giggles. “Okay?”

“Yeah. We can go say hi.”

“Good idea.”

They made their way over to Steve, who was saying hello to Thor. He grinned as Bucky and Nina joined him, and slung an arm around Bucky’s waist. Bucky tried very hard not to blush- he was still getting used to the being-with-another-man-in-public-is-okay thing.

“And this, is Nina,” Steve announced. Nina was looking up at Thor, with her head cocked to the side.

“So this is the young warrior I have heard so much about,” Thor said, with a big smile and booming voice. He leaned down so that his face was level with hers, which was quite far down even when she was in Bucky’s arms. Nina shook his proffered hand, though his palm was larger than her entire hand.

“I’m not a warrior,” Nina said pragmatically. “I’m four and three quarters. That is too small to be a soldier.”

“I think you are quite right,” Thor agreed, smiling still. “How have you been, Barnes?” He turned to Bucky.

“I got a kid,” Bucky shrugged, and Thor laughed in the earth-quake causing way that he did.

“An answer enough, I am lead to believe, but I am sure your young one is as good as her fathers.”

 _Fathers_. Not Father. He meant both him and Steve. Honestly, the compliment made his stomach flip. Steve was grinning at him like the idiot that he was.

“Papa put me down, please, I want to go and say hi.”

Bucky obediently followed orders from his tiny daughter, who made her way over to Nathaniel. Bucky watched as she sat next to him, and asked if he’d like to play with her as she thrust a toy into his hands. Nathaniel had nodded shyly, and soon the two of them were in their own little world.

Thor said something that left Steve spluttering and blushing- Bucky hadn’t been paying attention.

“What?”

“Nothing!” Steve said, a bit too quickly.

“I asked if you would be wed soon, considering you are raising a child,” Thor repeated, and Steve went from pink to red. Bucky froze for only a moment before he relaxed into an easy smile.

“C’mon man, do ya gotta ruin my surprises?”

Thor laughed, and Bucky was glad that his smooth-talking abilities were existent around people that weren’t Steve, who was looking at him with a curious expression. They’d be talking about it later, Bucky supposed.

The three of them were dragged over to the bar by Pepper, who had finally finished cuddling every single child in the room- Lila hadn’t complained, Pepper was cool- and got them all some lemonade. Soon, the adults were sat around chatting while the children played- well, the children and Tony. Callum was watching with fascination as Tony attached a projector to his bow so that he would always have a target, and then he was fiddling with something else so that Callum always hit the target. He was explaining the complex physics to Cooper. Lila was talking to Sam about flying.

“Thor!” Nina made her presence known just as she and Nathaniel dropped Thor’s hammer into the god’s lap. It was practically as big as they were. Everyone, even little Nicole, went very, very quiet. Thor was staring at the two of them with his jaw slack. Nina, entirely unaware of what she had done, was shaking her head at him. “It was in the way of our playing,” she said, by way of explanation, before pulling Nathaniel away. He was happy to follow her.

“Did she just-” Tony was the first to break the silence.

“Buck did you see that?” Steve was patting Bucky’s knee repeatedly, as though he was trying to get his attention.

“I have it on video should anyone like to rewatch the incident,” Jarvis’ voice came from overhead.

“So that makes Vision, Nina and Nathaniel,” Wanda counted on her fingers as she said their names.

“So glad the smug bastard isn’t here,” Tony muttered, and that raised another question, which Wanda answered before it was even asked. She was a mind reader, after all.

“He’s with SHIELD, helping them with their AI problem.”

It took everyone a few minutes to remember what they’d been talking about before the hammer incident.

“She’s a good kid,” Steve whispered to Bucky, who nodded dumbly. Of course she was.

They all ate dinner together, and the kids watched a movie, and fell asleep in front of the TV. Bucky and Steve said their goodbyes, and carried Nina downstairs to bed. They changed her and took off the legs, she mumbled and groaned the whole time that they were disturbing her sleep, and they laid her down in her own room. She’d been sleeping in there sporadically, because she wanted to, but she did come and crawl into bed with them around half way through the night.

Bucky and Steve went to sit in the living room, sat at other ends of the sofa with Bucky’s feet in Steve’s lap. Neither of them were tired yet. They discussed menial things, how nice it was to see their friends, how good the food had been, but all Bucky could think of was _Nina picked up mjilnor._

“She’s a good kid.” Bucky decided that was how he’d broach the conversation.

“Of course she is, she’s ours,” Steve teased, but Bucky gave him a look and his smile dropped. “I mean that in all seriousness.”

“I am not a good man, Steve,” Bucky whispered, barely loudly enough for himself to hear.

“Yes, you are,” Steve insisted, and there was a force in his voice that made Bucky hold his tongue. “You may have not done good things, but that wasn’t even you. That was the soldier. Their soldier. Not you, Buck.”

Bucky groaned, and buried his hands in his face. _I’m not good enough for either of you._

“What?” Steve’s voice was shocked. Pained, almost. He’d heard Bucky. He hadn’t meant to speak out loud.

“I-”

“That is the biggest load of horseshit I have ever heard in my entire life.”

“Steve-”

“No, Buck, you listen to me for once in your goddamn life,” Steve said hotly, and Bucky just blinked at him. “You are my best friend. Hell, you are so much more than my best friend- you’re my- well, boyfriend sounds like we’re college students and we have a kid but-” he took a deep breath to stop himself babbling. Bucky didn’t interrupt. “You’re my person, Buck. The person I’m with till the end of the line. The first person who I knew I loved who wasn’t my own family, and you’re the only person I’ve loved with all my heart and soul. You don’t get to decide if you’re good enough for me. That’s my job.” His facial expression was far less angry now, more hurt. Bucky felt like an ass.

“I love you.” His voice was thick with emotion. “Til the end of the line and beyond that.”

“I know.”

“I just. I’m so scared- I’m so scared of fucking up. What if I hurt Nina? I have episodes, I have night terrors- what if I fuck it up and hurt her? She hasn’t even said she loves us Steve what the fuck kinda parents does that make us?”

“You’re not going to hurt her. I’ve got her for when the episodes happen, just like I’ve got you.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “And Nina will tell us in her own time. She’s dealt with so much, and sometimes she seems so fine I almost forget- but this is just one of those things we have to wait for.”

Steve reached over and pulled Bucky towards him, hugging him close. Bucky hugged back, burying his face in Steve’s neck to hide the oncoming tears.

“You know, I asked my mum was it was like to be a parent, once. Because I wanted to know, because I didn’t ever think I’d get married, let alone being a parent. And she said it was a crash of being incredibly happy and incredibly scared- that’s how you know if you’re a good parent- because you care about your baby so much, that you’re terrified for them. But you still let them go and explore the world, because they have to. You just make sure you’re there when they need you and come home.” Steve took a deep breath as Bucky leaned back to look at him. “So I think it’s okay that we’re scared.”

Bucky kissed him for that- saying everything he couldn’t with a kiss. He leaned his forehead against Steve’s. Steve’s cheeks were flushed, and he was smiling.

“I love you.”

“Enough that you were planning on surprising me with a proposal?” Steve teased, and Bucky thwacked his chest, which only brought out a low, rumbling laugh.

“You ass,” he mumbled, and Steve laughed again, his head thrown back and his whole body shaking.

“Would you marry me? If I asked?”

Steve immediately stopped laughing, his gaze snapping back to meet Bucky’s.

“Yes.”

Nothing more was said on the topic.

It was 2:09 when Nina wheeled into their room, and then hoisted herself onto the bed from her chair. Usually, she was careful not to wake them, though both he and Steve were awake from the moment there was noise coming from her bedroom. Today, however, she was not so careful.

“Papa? Dad?”

“Yes Nina?”

“What is it, darlin’?”

“How do you know if you love someone?” She was sat up in bed, facing the two of them.

“Always one for easy questions and convenient times, aren’t you Nina?” Bucky said as his stretched out his arm. She crawled over to him, and settled so she was lying on his arm, facing his chest. She busied her hands, tracing over the scars that spread from his shoulder to his collar bone, and half way down his chest. It was too hot for him to sleep in a t-shirt already, though it was only May.

“Loving someone,” he said, looking to Steve, who was watching them, bleary eyed and half asleep, “is knowing that you want to spend the rest of your life seeing that person- how they grow and change and all the funny things that they do and say- and feeling like you never, ever want to be without them again- because they make you stronger. Their love makes you stronger.”

“You feel it, right here,” Steve told her, tapping his chest. Nina had rolled over to look at him now. “You feel like you’d run around the world, just to find them again if you had to, and that they’d do the same for you. But it’s other things too- like knowing how to make them laugh, and knowing how to make them feel better if they’re sad, and them being happy makes you happy.”

“And they scare away your nightmares, and you scare away theirs?” Nina questioned.

“Yes, baby, definitely.”

Nina went quiet, but Steve was looking at him like his heart was about to burst.

It’s 2:13 when Nina speaks again. Bucky had known she was awake still because he could hear her trying to match her breathing to theirs.

“I love you,” she says quietly, facing Steve, and then she turns her head to Bucky. “I love you.”

“We love you too,” Steve whispers, kissing her head. Bucky does the same.

“To the moon and back?” Nina asks, and Bucky nods.

“Even further than that, Nina. We love you even further than that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think in the comments!


	6. Everyone has bad days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Nina have difficulties overcoming what HYDRA did to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mentions of past child abuse.  
> This is a shorter chapter- kind of a behind the scenes catch up interlude thing

Progress wasn’t linear. Steve knew that. He’d heard it from Sam enough times; he’d heard it down at the VA and from Bucky’s therapist and now Nina’s. But it didn’t stop the ache in his chest when Bucky woke him up in the middle of the night to tell him to _just go_ in a moment of lucidity. Day twenty seven after Nina came into their lives. Steve didn’t touch him, he didn’t reach out to tell him it would be okay- he just took the arm and left. Bucky could do more damage to himself when he had the metal limb- so they’d agreed long ago that Steve would hide it in another room when Bucky had an episode.

Progress wasn’t linear, he knew, but it didn’t stop the hitch of his breath as he heard the door lock from the inside, and a muffled scream into the pillow. He crept passed Nina’s room, down the hall and to the left to leave the arm in a box by the desk in the study. He made his way back, and with a longing look at the door, across the hall, went to Nina’s room. She was already sat up in bed.

“Hey, Nina, you should be sleeping,” he whispered, the cheer in his voice obviously forced. She looked up at him, and reached out her hands to him. He climbed into bed with her, lying down with her and pulling her close.

“Is Papa gonna be okay?” she mumbled, her eyes darting to the door and back. Steve wrinkled his nose to try and stop himself from crying.

“He’s having really bad nightmares.”

“Can’t you go fix it?”

Steve tucked her head under his chin, so she couldn’t quite make out the wobble in his voice or see the tears in his eyes.

“No darlin’, not this time.”

“But why?” Her question is a desperate one, and Steve wants to say _I know how you feel,_ but he doesn’t. He has to be brave for her, and for Bucky.

“Because sometimes you have to scare them away by yourself, when you’re a grown up.”

Nina was quiet for a long while, which meant she was thinking about something, and was probably going to end up asking a question that Steve doesn’t want to or doesn’t know how to answer.  
“When Papa has nightmares, is he the Winter Soldier?” She sounded scared- but somehow Steve knew that she was scared for Bucky, not scared of him.

“No, sweetheart, when Papa has nightmares he’s fighting the Winter Soldier.”

Bucky didn’t emerge from their bedroom. Steve waited all morning and for half of the afternoon- he ended up putting leftover breakfast and lunch in the fridge. He took Nina to Natasha, so that he could check on Bucky without her seeing. It wasn’t that he was scared of Bucky hurting her- he just knows that Bucky doesn’t want her to see him like this. He barely wanted to let Steve see him like this.

He was loud as he walked to the bedroom door, trying to make sure that Bucky could hear him coming, if he wasn’t asleep. He heard shuffling around inside the room, as he slid down the wall so he was sitting on the floor, and his voice could carry through the gap.

“Come back to me, Bucky.” It’s a quiet plea that he asks every time.

“Steve?” It was a whimper, but it was something.

“I’m right here,” Steve told him, holding a hand up against the door. He knew Bucky was doing the same. There wasn’t any noise after that.

Steve called Natasha to ask if Nina would stay that night at theirs- and within minutes she and Bruce were there with his little girl. Bruce and Natasha went around the apartment, collecting all the things that Nina would need for a night away from home. Steve sat with her in the rocking chair, trying to explain why she couldn’t stay at home that night. It nearly ended in tears from both of them. Natasha carried her to the door, and he gave her a kiss goodbye, but before any of the adults could stop her, she ran down the hallway. She politely knocked on the bedroom door.

“Papa?” She called tentatively. The door cracked open, but only slightly. “I wanted to come and kiss you goodnight- I’m staying with Aunty Natasha.”

“Goodnight, _lyubov moya,_ ” came Bucky’s hoarse voice, and a hand reached out through the gap in the door. Nina took his large hand in both of hers, and brought his palm up to her cheek, before kissing it gently.

“I love you, Papa,” she said to him quietly, and the hand pulled away from her sharply. Natasha was carrying Nina away, and as soon as she, Bruce and Nina were out of the apartment, there was a deafening scream. It’s only then that Steve cried.

Steve was woken from his curled up position on the couch by a gentle call of his name. Bucky was stood in front of him, moonlight cutting across his face like glass. Steve had forgotten to pull the curtains. He looked lost, and hurt, and Steve did not move or breathe until Bucky reached out to him.

And then they were a heap of limbs on the couch, Bucky holding Steve so tight that it was a miracle the other man could breathe.

“I came back to you,” Bucky breathed, pressing his forehead to Steve’s.

“You always do.”

Bucky kissed him, and Steve wiped the tears off Bucky's face with a sweep of his thumb when Bucky pulled away. 

"You waited for me," Bucky said, his voice shaking. Steve nodded, and Bucky looked at him as though he was something special.

"I will always wait for you. You, and Nina, you are my everything."

"And you are mine."

They talked until the sun rose- Steve nodding encouragingly as Bucky took five minutes to say one sentence. He needed to be able to choose his own words, he’d told Steve once, after a month of being mute in SHIELD’s care. He hadn’t had that luxury for seventy years. So Steve waited, and he listened.

 

It was thirty one days after Nina had been in their care when Fury came to their apartment. Nina was busy playing in the living room, her voice carried as she babbled away in Russian and English while Bucky and Steve sat at the kitchen table, twiddling their thumbs as Fury filled them in on every minute detail of the hunt for Babichev. The SHIELD operatives had taken out HYDRA, but Babichev was still out there.

Nina had suddenly gone very quiet.

Fury had left after that, and that was one of Nina’s worst days. She did not speak, only communicated in nods and hand gestures, and she did not play but sat at the window, a frown turning down her little mouth as she thought.

She’d been punished for speaking out of turn when she was with Babichev, they’d discovered after a particularly bad day (day sixteen). Like Bucky, she needed to be reminded that it was okay to voice her thoughts, her opinions- she was allowed to be a person.

_“You don’t have to right now,” Steve had said, as gently as he could to Nina, who was shrinking away from him, “but you can tell me what’s wrong, sweetheart. Whenever you’re comfortable.”_

_She spoke to him then, for the first time in fourteen hours. “Will you hit me?”_

_Steve had shaken his head adamantly. Bucky went pale. His dad had never been afraid to hit him, when he was growing up, and Bucky took the beatings that George Barnes had tried to give to little Becca and his mother. By the time Harriet and Lindsey had been born, George Barnes was rarely home enough to bother paying attention to his children. Thankfully._

_“No, Nina. We are never going to hit you. I promise you.”_

_She’d nodded at that, and told them that sometimes Babichev would say words that would make her not want to speak- she could have if she wanted to, but it made her listen. She’d been repeating those words to herself over and over again in her head and out loud if she could- so the words didn’t mean anything anymore._

_Bucky left, and Steve could hear him retching in the bathroom._

_“If someone said those words to you now, Nina, would you have to listen?”_

_“No. They don’t mean anything anymore- it’s just a normal word. I can talk when I want to.” The last sentence had sounded like a question._

_“You can talk whenever you want to. All the time if needs be.”_

_And for the first time in sixteen hours, she hugged Steve._

She slept in their bed that night, and they hugged her close and read her stories, which she did not respond to. Half way through ‘the little prince’, Nina spoke for the first time since Fury had left the apartment.

“Is Dr Babichev going to take me away?”

“That man is never going to come near you again, Nina,” Bucky promised her fiercely. She placed a hand over his heart, and he covered her hand with his. “You’re safe with us. You’re safe.”

Steve stroked her hair and hummed her lullabies to help her sleep, and Bucky fretted over his promise. They could only keep her safe when she was with them, and they couldn’t keep her locked up in the tower forever. She’d escaped one prison- she didn’t need her home to become the next one.

“We’ll figure it out,” Steve whispered, as if he had read Bucky’s mind. “We always do.”

They both breathed a sigh of relief when Nina woke them up at four in the morning to tell them that they hadn’t finished reading ‘the little prince’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I look forward to hearing what you thought.


	7. Nina goes to school

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nina and Nathaniel have another play date, Nina learns what school is and decides that she very much wants to go. 
> 
> Bucky runs into someone he never thought he would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't posted in ages! I've got future-determining exams coming up so this is probably the last one for a while

Clint visits the tower on Avengers business, and brings Nathaniel with him for a play date with Nina. She wheels back and forth across the front door more times than Bucky can count, she’s so excited. Steve has had to leave to do some Captain America business that involved paper work- he’d grumbled and pouted from the moment Maria called him, and Bucky suspected his behaviour didn’t change once he was at the meeting- he’d shuffled rather than walked out of the door.

When Nathaniel _finally_ arrived, Nina was beside herself. Nathaniel, she’d announced to them when she found out he was coming, was her best friend. He went to ballet, and had a _tutu, (Papa can I have one?)_ and liked playing aeroplanes with Nina. He was almost as good a friend as Myagkiy, but that’s only because Myagkiy stayed with Nina always, and she’d only sometimes seen Nathaniel, she reasoned to Bucky. He nodded along, listening very seriously to her four year old logic.

Nathaniel was in a blue tutu today, and Nina was watching him spin around and around in circles- she turned to give Bucky a look as if to say _I want one._ When Nathaniel finally stopped spinning and promptly fell on his backside, all three of them burst into giggles.

Bucky watched them carefully from behind a newspaper when Nina insisted that they were playing games not-for-grown-ups, and eagerly read to them when Nathaniel asked ever so politely. When Steve and Clint arrived in the early evening, the two children were busy making a masterpiece, which Bucky had promised he’d stick up on the fridge. He’d put newspaper across the table before they painted, and he was glad he did because they’d decided to forgo brushes and use their hands. Nathaniel had a rather orange Nina sized handprint covering half of his face, and Nina looked like a rainbow had thrown up on her. He wasn’t quite sure when or how paint got in her hair.

The two of them were thrown in the bath together while Steve made dinner, and Clint and Bucky were left to defend themselves from the Attack of the Bubbles. By the time the children were hauled out of the bath, all four of them were soaked from head to toe. Nathaniel stood as Clint dried him off, watching as Bucky took care of Nina- sitting her on a ledge they’d attached to the wall near the sink so she didn’t have to be carried.

“Nina?” Nathaniel called over, slightly muffled as he tugged his spare t-shirt on over his head.

“Yes?”

“Why don’t your legs work?”

Clint and Bucky stilled at the question, and Bucky waited with baited breath for Nina to respond- she’d scrunched up her face and was evidently thinking very hard, but she hadn’t looked to him for help. Clint, on his part, didn’t chastise Nathaniel for the question. He was five and curious, and it was fair enough. He’d take him aside and talk to him about politeness if Nina got upset. Which she didn’t.

“They do sometimes- Uncle Tony made me helper pair. Why don’t your daddy’s ears work?”

“They just don’t. Some people are like that.”

“Same with my legs.”

“Okay.”

And that was the end of that conversation- they quickly moved on to dinosaurs- Bucky’s head was spinning slightly at the speed of discussion.

Steve called them for dinner, after all four of them changed into clean clothes, and Nathaniel asks if he can come again tomorrow.

“No can do, kid, you got school,” Clint tells him around a mouth full of food, and he ruffles his hair when Nathaniel pouts. Nathaniel is quick to rearrange his hair and groan at his dad.

“What’s school?” Nina pipes up, and Clint raises an eyebrow at Steve and Bucky. They both look sheepish.

“School is, um, well you have a teacher- mine is Mrs Garcia- and you learn things like reading and writing and art and Spanish-” Nathaniel tells her, counting all of the things he does on his fingers.

“I can do reading and writing! My daddies are my teacher.” Nina interrupts, and Nathaniel beams and nods.

“Yeah but at school there are other kids and you get play time and you eat lunch at tables with your friends.”

“Wow,” Nina breathes quietly. “That sounds like fun! Can I go to school with you?”

“M’fraid not, sweetheart-” Bucky says as he finished a mouthful, and Nina frowns and looks more offended than he’s ever seen her.

“Why?” She demands, and Nathaniel helpfully answers for Bucky.

“Because your house isn’t near my house and school has to be near your house.”

“Oh.” That mollifies Nina a bit, and the two of them take a few mouthfuls before changing the topic once more.

“She’s nearly five, and you’ve not thought about sending her to school yet?” Clint asks quietly, and Bucky clenches his jaw.

“She’s not been here long, we don’t want to throw too much at her.” His jaw is set like he’s ready to defend his decisions with his fists, but obviously he doesn’t need to because Clint just shrugs.

“Fair enough. But I’d think about it yeah? She’s a smart kid, it’s not as if she’d fall behind especially if she’s got Tony and Bruce and you lot as her teachers- but she needs to see kids her own age. Nothing can replace that.” Clint had a way of saying things like it is.

Steve nods, and so does Bucky- though a lot stiffer. If he’s honest, the idea of being away from Nina for more than a few hours at a time has him breaking into a cold sweat. Steve seems a lot calmer, but Bucky knows he’s jiggling his leg under the table- he’s just as nervous as Bucky about the idea of leaving Nina alone without anyone they’d trust to defend her with their life if they had to. Which he knows every single one of the avengers would do in a heartbeat.

“We’ll talk to Pepper- she knows things,” Steve says with a shrug that means _we’ll think about it._

“That she does.”

Clint and Nathaniel eventually leave, after a solid half an hour of tears from both children who shout that it’s not fair that they can’t play for a little longer. Nathaniel is only roped into putting his shoes on by Clint telling him that his mummy would be missing him, and would want to read him a bed time story- but she won’t be able to if Clint and Nathaniel get back after bed time.

Nina, miraculously, asks to go to bed at eight o’clock. Steve raises an eyebrow at her.

“You tired?”

“No,” she immediately answers, jutting her chin out in the same indignant way that Bucky does. Steve can’t help but smirk a little. “I just want _two_ bedtime stories.” She gives as an explanation, holding up two fingers. Bucky hoists her up onto his lap and cuddles her close- she doesn’t protest.

“ _Two whole_ stories? Who’s gonna read them?”

“One Papa and one daddy,” Nina tells him, trying to stifle a yawn. Honestly, she’s so cute it hurts.

Bucky and Steve make quick work of getting her ready for bed, and all three of them climb into her bed for story time, with Nina in the middle and Bucky on her left, and Steve on her right. By the end of Steve’s story, she’s out like a light. Steve and Bucky quietly pad out of the room, and go to clear the apartment. It looked like a tornado had passed through, with toys and books and art materials all over the place. Bucky had tried to encourage them to put away toys once they were done with them, but he was ignored for the most part.

He was washing the last of the dishes when he heard a yelp from the living room.

“Bloody hell!” Steve swore, louder than he should have, and had Bucky not been, well, him, he probably would have dropped the soapy plate in his hand. He couldn’t help the small smile that formed when he noted how Steve had dropped the ‘h’ on ‘hell’, just as Peggy used to when she got really angry, or had a tiny bit too much to drink.

“Language!” He called, out of habit rather than anything else. He heard Steve growling something before he stormed into the kitchen. He came very close to Bucky, and held out a little plastic brick so close to Bucky’s face he had to cross his eyes to look at it.

“You ever stepped on one of these fuckers?” He asked hotly, and Bucky had to purse his lips to stop him from giggling as he shook his head. Captain America glowering at his partner because of a piece of Lego was too funny not to laugh at.

“Hurts like a-” Steve started to say as he dropped his hand, and Bucky raised an eyebrow at him. Steve’s shoulders dropped. “Like a thing that hurts a lot.”

Bucky reached up and patted Steve’s cheek with a soapy hand.

“Poor baby, better look where you’re going next time, huh?” He teases, and Steve sticks out his tongue at him before grabbing a tea towel and taking up station next to Bucky. They could have just stuck everything in the dishwasher and be done with it, but there was something nice about doing domestic things the old fashioned way that both of them appreciated more than they would care to admit.

“Jerk,” Steve mumbles under his breath.

“Punk,” Bucky replies, and bumps their hips together. Steve takes advantage of their closeness and gives him a peck on the cheek, which had never failed to make Bucky blush slightly before, and certainly wouldn’t now. Steve grins.

They finish tidying the kitchen, and Steve absent-mindedly comments on how much he would have loved to have paint in so many colours as a kid while he clears away Nina’s things and Bucky pins her artwork to the fridge. The picture of the three of them doesn’t look quite so lonely now amongst the brightly coloured alphabet fridge magnets that they have started arranging into new words for Nina.

Once they’re done with the living room, they curl up on the couch together, with Bucky practically on top of Steve.

“Dyu think we should be sending her to school? What grade would she even be in?” Bucky asks, as he’s tracing patterns over Steve’s bicep.

“Kindergarten’s for four to five.”

“She’s smart enough for kindergarten, that’s for sure.”

“Give it a coupla years and she’ll be smarter than both of us, probably,” Steve chuckled, and Bucky could feel the rumbles in his chest rather than hear them. _Hyperintelligent_ Dr Goldstein had called Nina, after their twelfth therapy session. Bruce suspected it was mostly natural smarts, like a super power, but the serum just helped her brain work even faster than it was before- which was probably why, to stop itself from overloading, it cut out the connections to her legs. At least, that’s what Bucky gleaned from the science talk. He’d been good at science when he was in high school- but they know so much more now that he’s got no hope.

Steve notices his silence, and the slowed but more random patterns he’s tracing, and he sighs and kisses the top of Bucky’s head. “I’m worried sick about letting her go too,” he says earnestly, and Bucky nods.

“How’d we know she’s gonna be safe? The kid of Captain America and the Winter Soldier can’t exactly go to a normal school.” _A school that’s not protected,_ is what he doesn’t say. _A school where Dr Babichev can’t find her._

Steve mutters something that distinctly sounds like “you’re not the winter soldier” and Bucky gives him a look that says _not the point._ Steve huffs and runs a hand through his hair.

“We’ll ask Pepper. She knows everything and everyone.”

“We’re damn lucky,” Bucky starts, and Steve doesn’t interrupt even when he’s quiet for such a long time that you’d think he’d finished what he’d had to say. Steve knew better. “We’re damn lucky to have people that care so damn much about Nina. About us.”

“Pretty neat little family unit we got going,” Steve agrees, and Bucky snorts.

“Wouldn’t call it little.”

“S’kinda pretty though- at least you are,” Steve grins as he pokes Bucky’s cheek. Bucky rolls his eyes at him.

“Sap. That’s what you are. Big ol’ sap.”

“Who you callin’ old? Your birthday is four months before mine!”

“We’re one hundred and three, Steve. One. Hundred. And. Three. Think it doesn’t make muchuva difference no more.”

“You would say that, grandpa.”

“I believe you’re the one that earned that title, not me.”

“You’re such a-”

Bucky cuts Steve off with a kiss, and Steve can’t stop grinning. He lives for moments like these, happy moments where nothing else matters but him and Bucky, and now Nina.

They talk for a while, just enjoying each other’s company and trading kisses like any other couple would. It still makes them both a little light headed, the fact that they can kiss and there won’t be any repercussions. No one can hurt them for loving each other, not any more. It’s a perk of the twenty first century that Steve _really_ enjoys. That and the fact that people can afford food and medicine now quite easily- though when he heard not everyone was so lucky he went a bit insane and donated a tonne of money to food shelters and to children’s hospitals to pay off parents’ debts that were getting too much to handle. He then got really mad because he discovered that England had the NHS, but people in America thought that health care was a privilege? _What the hell?_

Eventually, they drag their feet to bed and it feels like the minute that Bucky’s fallen asleep, Nina wakes him up again. It’s 3am, and honestly he’s not used to her random, slightly non-existent sleeping habits. He wouldn’t be a hypocrite about it, as long as she was getting enough sleep. Traitorously, his mind wondered if her sleeping habits would regulate themselves if she went to school.

“Papa,” she whispers, as she hoists herself up onto the bed. He rolls over and pulls her up the rest of the way, over his chest and down between him and Steve. Steve blearily opens one eye to check Nina’s okay, before closing his eyes again. He’s not asleep, but he’s close enough to it.

“Sup, Nina?” Bucky asks, his voice gravelly and thick with sleep.

“Can I actually go to school?”

“If you go to sleep right now, we can go see Pepper first thing tomorrow.”

“I’m asleep!” She squeaks, and Steve’s chest jumps as he lets out a laugh. Bucky smiles at her before drifting off.

Bucky wakes up again at seven, to Nina blowing raspberries on his cheek, dangerously close to his ear, to get him up. Steve is, unhelpfully, just watching them and laughing. Nina looks all too pleased with herself when Bucky groans and grabs her to give her a wet kiss on the nose. She shrieks with laughter, and Bucky vaguely registers the flash of Steve’s phone camera in his periphery.

“Can we ask Aunty Pepper ‘bout school now?” Nina asks, holding his face so he looks at her just like she always does when she wants attention.

“What time is it?”

“Six thirty.”

“If Pepper is a sensible human being, unlike you, she will be asleep.”

“That’s what Daddy said!”

“Why didn’t you listen to him then?”

“More fun to wake you up,” she grins, and Bucky looks at Steve who just shrugs as if he was entirely innocent to the matter. He was not.

Bucky sighed and tackled Nina again, smothering her in kisses as she laughed and laughed.

“Don’t do that no more Papa your face is scratchy!” She squeals, and Bucky belatedly realises that she’s picking up a Brooklyn twang from the two of them. It’s not quite like theirs, and it’s not quite like anyone else’s, with the odd Russian accent on some words and slightly posher pronunciation on others; Bucky has no idea where that came from.

Nina pats his cheeks and the day old stubble that’s growing. “You need to shave, Papa,” she says seriously, and Bucky rolls his eyes. She just mimics him.

The three of them eventually haul ass out of bed, Steve goes for a run and when he gets back they eat together. Every five minutes, as if she’s got some sort of internal alarm clock, Nina asks if they can go see Pepper.

It’s 8:45 by the time they cave, knowing Pepper will most definitely be awake, but won’t be in any meetings. Pepper loves efficiency and therefore hates Monday mornings before ten, because no one is ever awake enough to _do_ anything useful. So Nina gets put in her chair (which she complains about, only a little, but they bargain that she can wear her legs all afternoon when they go to the park, and she’s appeased).

They reach Tony and Pepper’s floor to find Pepper, Tony, Bruce and Natasha drinking coffee and eating pancakes.

“Aunty Natasha! Aunty Pepper!” Nina squeals, and rolls over to them so fast she nearly runs over Tony’s feet as he’s walking to the fridge.

“What about me, Tiny?” Tony asks, sounding affronted. Nina is already in Natasha’s arms but she wriggles around to look at him.

“What about you?” She asks, and Tony’s jaw drops.

“The nerve of that kid,” he mutters, glaring at Steve and Bucky, and Bruce pats his shoulder in condolence as Tony slumps next to him. Not that Bruce isn’t snickering himself.

Pepper walks over to Steve and Bucky and kisses them both on the cheek- she has to stand on her tiptoes and they have to lean down ever so slightly- before sitting them down at the breakfast table and handing them a plate of pancakes each. They don’t complain, they don’t tell her they already ate, because if anyone was to deny Pepper Potts’ pancakes, they were a fool.

“Not that we don’t like you, but why are you here?” Tony asks, gaze barely flicking over to the two super soldiers as he engages in a staring contest with Nina. Natasha is feeding her little bits of honey covered fruit as she sits on her lap.

“Came to see Pepper, actually,” Bucky says, and Tony makes a face that speaks volumes. “-and to say hi to you. Natasha and Bruce are a bonus.”

“Hi,” Nina says to Tony, and there’s a challenge in her voice. Neither of them have blinked yet. Tony replies in the same tone. Pepper shakes her head at them both.

“So what did you want to see me for?”

“Well, it’s mostly Nina, you see-”

“I wanna go to school!” Nina turns away from Tony and blinks up at Pepper, ignoring Tony’s crows that he won the contest. _She’s four, Tony,_ Natasha reminds him, to which he replies “ _so?_ ”

“I see,” Pepper nods thoughtfully. “We gotta make a good decision, then, hadn’t we?” Nina nods, and Pepper grabs a tablet from the table. It’s so thin Bucky hadn’t realised it was there- but also, he’s been distracted by pancakes. So he has an acceptable excuse.

“It would be a lot of hassle to organise Shield on sight security at any of the close kindergartens, and I think preferably we should send her to a school with an attached elementary because I feel like she’ll be ready for first grade by September if she gets enough socialising done for the rest of this term. The school needs to be wheelchair friendly, obviously, with the right staff to work with her too, and I think smallish classes would be good for her because she needs to be slowly introduced to lots of people-” Pepper is talking at a million miles an hour, and Bucky and Steve can only just about keep up with her. “So all in all, I think this one is best.”

She hands them a tablet, and Steve has no idea how she managed to narrow it down in under sixty seconds from all the schools in Manhattan to one, but she does. It’s beautiful, from the pictures- an old mansion converted into a school. There’s a blue sign with white writing by the gate that reads “C-J Elementary and Kindergarten for Gifted Children- _aliud est superbire_ ”.

“Looks fancy as hell,” Bucky says and whistles low. It’s like the private schools he and Steve used to walk past as kids and wonder how the other half lived. “How much does it cost?” Natasha snorts. As if they needed to worry about money.

“It doesn’t. If parents can, they donate money to the school. Otherwise, it’s covered. It was set up by a generous benefactor, so the government don’t really have anything to do with it.”

“Is it safe?” Steve asks, not looking up from the tablet. He’s meticulously looking through every page on the website.    

“It’s got Shield security surrounding it at all times already, so I’m pretty sure you’re covered.”

“It does? What kinda school is this?” He’s finally looked up from the tablet and briefly turns to Bucky with an eyebrow raised.

“Set up by Daisy Johnson, it’s backed by funding from Shield to teach Inhuman kids who can’t go to normal schools- for fear of getting hurt or hurting others because they’ve not got total control of their powers yet. There’s a few all over the country- but this one is closest to us.”

“But Nina isn’t Inhuman,” Bucky says, turning to Bruce to check he’d not missed anything that was said in check-ups.

“No, but she is enhanced, and we don’t really know the full extent of what that means,” Bruce supplies quietly- not that he needs to worry about Nina hearing because she is being very loud with Tony at the other end of the room.

“Wait-” Steve interrupts. “C-Johnson. Daisy Johnson the agent. Quake. What’s the C stand for?”

“Carter. After Peggy,” Pepper tells him, and Steve has a soft sort of smile that he always gets when he thinks about his friend.

“Ain’t exactly subtle, is it? For a school in hiding? I mean come on- _gifted children?_ Carter-Johnson? The damn motto is _proud to be different._ ” Bucky asks, and Natasha looks at him, wholly unimpressed.

“Has your brain turned to mush, James? Best way to hide is hide in plain sight.”

“She has a point,” Tony calls from the other end of the room, and Bucky would stick his middle finger up if Nina wasn’t looking his way.

“We could go visit today, if you’d like?” Pepper asks, and before she gets a reply, she tells Jarvis to send her assistant to her meetings if they must be had, and if not then to rearrange her schedule. It was nothing too important today anyway.

“Am I going to school?” Nina wheels up to Steve, who looks down at her hopeful face and sighs. He couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed that she’d only been with them for a month and a half, and she had already out-grown her dads.

“We’re going to go take a look.”

The screams of “yay” were enough to wake the dead, and soon he, Pepper, Bucky and Nina are in a very normal car- Pepper’s first car that she couldn’t get rid of because her parents had bought it for her- which Tony has upgraded with bulletproof windows and the like- heading to C-J Elementary. It’s a little way out, but it only takes them half an hour to get there. Pepper called ahead to let them know they’d be coming, but still all of them are in disguises- Steve has glasses on and Bucky slips on the synthetic flesh sleeve that Agent Fitz made for him, on a whim, apparently (Tony could have done it when he made the new arm, but he said Bucky had a “brand” and he wasn’t going to change that) and Nina wears her legs. If anyone is looking for them, they’ll be looking for a kid in a wheelchair, a man with a metal arm and Captain America. Pepper lets out her usual chignon, puts on a hat and a pair of jeans and Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever seen her wear something so casual in his life.

They get their no problem, and when they arrive, Daisy Johnson herself is there to greet them- along with two other agents- Bucky assumes they're agents- that’s what their stance screams, anyway, no matter how casual they’re trying to look.  They walk up the steps to meet them, Nina staying holding on tight to Steve and Bucky’s hands as she walks between them. Stairs still give her legs a little trouble, so Steve eventually lifts her into his arms.

“Mr Rogers, Mr Barnes, Pepper told me you were coming to visit so I thought I better come by myself to meet you. I’m Daisy Johnson.” Daisy greets them with a handshake and a small smile that looks like it’s threatening to break into a grin. The other two are not so subtle. One of the agents- the blond man- is staring at Bucky’s hand- the one that should be metal but looks like flesh. Daisy is greeting Pepper when the blond man word vomits.

“That’s mine!” He is very, very Scottish. “I did that!” He points at Bucky’s hand, and the other agent- the dark haired woman, sighs and looks disappointedly at him.

“I’m so sorry about him.” She is very, very English. “He wasn’t sure if you’d ever wear it even, because he made it after he’d perfected Coulson’s properly and- oh, sorry, I didn’t introduce us, I’m Jemma Simmons and this is-”

“Agent Fitz,” Bucky finishes for her, shaking Fitz’s hand.

“Leo Fitz, sir,” Fitz nods, dropping Bucky’s hand. Bucky raises an eyebrow at being called ‘sir’ by someone who isn’t Jarvis or Steve when he’s being sarcastic. Daisy is watching them all with a fully blown smirk, but then turns back to Steve. Only she’s not looking at Steve, she’s looking at Nina.

“You must be Nina,” she says kindly, and Nina nods. Daisy seems pleased she got any reaction at all. “Your Aunt Pepper told me you’re really excited to go to school.”

Nina waits a beat before going, “yup!” and popping the ‘p’. Jemma looks like she’s about to melt into a puddle on the floor.

“Well, would you like to come inside? Jemma and Fitz have just donated some new science equipment, so they’re here to see if the kids like it. I’m gonna show you and your dads around, and then we can go meet Miss Ramachandran, who teaches the class you’ll be going into if you come here.”

“Sounds like a good plan, huh Nina?” Steve asks and hitches her up onto his hip slightly more. Nina nods, and the six of them head inside. Jemma and Fitz leave, and Jemma announces not so quietly to Fitz _oh my goodness Fitz she’s so cute I want one we should have one_ and Fitz makes a sound like he’s choking on his own spit. Bucky thinks it’s cute that they’re together.

About half way through the tour, which is dictated by Daisy who is mostly talking to Nina but occasionally turns to speak to the adults- which Bucky appreciates because it means she actually cares about kids and will have hopefully hired people like her- Nina wriggles down from Steve’s grasp and goes to hold Daisy’s hand as they walk. They pass a gym and windows that show a huge playground outside with sandpits and gardens that the kids plant themselves, Daisy tells them, and classrooms with kids from first grade to sixth. They’re almost at the kindergarten, which has a separate area of the school to itself, when Nina asks a question.

“Can I go to school in my chair?”

“Definitely, Nina, there’s elevators and ramps for kids like you.”

When they get to the kindergarten classroom, Nina’s eyes nearly pop out of her head. It’s bright and sunny and the walls are painted a pale blue with clouds going across it. There’s only seven kids, and they’re all sat on a carpet near the front of the classroom where a pretty young woman is reading to them. Bucky thinks she can’t be more than twenty five. She’s got warm, brown skin and has long black hair which has been tied into a plait- though it looks like it’s going to fall out any minute. She’s wearing a bright yellow sundress, and henna covers her hands and forearms, and Nina pulls down Bucky so he’s crouching next to her.

“Papa the teacher is a princess!” She whispers quietly, though not as quietly as she thought because Miss Ramachandran looks up and smiles, pausing her reading. It’s enough to make all the children, apart from one little girl, turn to look at them.  Nina is too absorbed in looking at Miss Ramachandran to care.

“Would you like to come and listen?” The teacher asks, and Nina turns back to Bucky and Steve. They both nod, and she runs off to sit next to the other kids. Miss Ramachandran asks her her name, and Nina replies shyly. The teacher is already reading again when Bucky, Steve, Pepper and Daisy slip out. Pepper says she’s going to go and talk to the headmistress about security, and then it’s just the two of them and Daisy.

“So what d’ya think?” Daisy asks, her arms crossed.

“You should be very proud of yourself, ma’am,” Steve says with a slight inclination of his head.

“Ma’am? What are you, one hundred?” Daisy teases, and Steve blushes, and Bucky suspects she’s been wanting to make that joke for _ages._

“One hundred and three, actually,” he pipes up, and Steve glares at him but Daisy just laughs.

“I am proud. I would have killed to go to a school this nice when I was a kid,” she tells them, and Steve and Bucky both agree. Steve still looks slightly hesitant. Bucky’s been mapping out the school the whole time. All the windows are reinforced, the entrances are all guarded- it’s pretty good so far.

“It’s just- do you think she’ll fit in? All the kids here are Inhumans and Nina, is, well, not.” Bucky knows Steve has been internally panicking about this- he was the kid that stood out like a sore thumb, and he got some nasty treatment for it too.

“She’s got two super soldiers for dad’s and is enhanced herself- I think she’ll be alright,” She deadpans, and it seems to relax Steve hearing it from her.

“Are all the teachers Inhuman too?” Bucky asks, and Daisy shakes her head.

“Nope- Miss Ramachandran is and so are the teachers for first, second, fourth and sixth grade, but other staff and teachers aren’t. Miss Ramachandran is conveniently everything-proof, for if the kids lose control, so Nina would definitely be in safe hands. Miss Joseph isn’t though- she’s the assistant teacher for kindergarten.”

Daisy jerks her thumb towards the classroom, and both Steve and Bucky look in to see an older lady pottering around at the back of the room. Bucky cannot tell how old she is, and she looks like your ideal grandmother with a round, cheerful face and grey hair tied up in a bun. Bucky can’t help but think she looks a lot like Becca when she got old- though her skin is darker. Shield had found photos for him- he didn’t ask how- so he could see his family. They’d asked if he wanted to contact them- he insisted that they did not need to be put through that. Becca had grown up to be a midwife, inspired by Steve’s mum, and had had four babies herself. Four boys- James, Buchanan, Steven and Grant. Harriet also became a nurse, though Bucky suspected she was actually an agent, because she went to France just before the war ended to help and came back in a casket. She was only nineteen. Lindsey had married, Bucky couldn’t remember the guys name for the life of him, and had a little girl.  

Bucky eventually zones back in when Nina is attempting to climb his leg like he’s a tree, and he picks her up while Daisy and Steve are talking about the process of enrolling Nina into the school. They go to meet Miss Ramachandran and Bucky warms to her immediately, as does Steve. She reminds them both a little of Peggy, with her red lipstick and pragmatism. They wave goodbye, and Miss Joseph smiles at them, though she looks at Bucky a little oddly. Like she’d seen a ghost. Bucky suspects that maybe she recognised him from news footage, but neither of them say anything. They meet the head teacher, who looks slightly frazzled after Pepper has been grilling her for so long, and has made her sign stacks and stacks of papers that she’s pulled out from her handbag saying that no information about Nina gets out to the public.

The headmistress leaves them in her office while she heads to the office to grab some enrolment forms for them to take home, and also a donation slip because Pepper is keen to give some money.

“You think this is a good place for her, Bucky?” Steve asks, chewing his lip so hard it might split.

“Whaddya think, sweetheart? You like it here?” Bucky asks her, instead of answering Steve’s question. Nina nods so quickly Bucky is scared her neck might snap.

“Yes! I really like it here. So much. More than so much. Like this much!” She stretches out her arms as far as she can go, and Daisy smiles fondly at her. The headmistress, Mrs Pietrizcky, comes in with her arms full of papers, and smiles a mile wide when Bucky and Steve say they’ll fill out the forms then and there.

Eventually, they’re free to go, and Jemma and Fitz meet Daisy at the front of the school.

“Thank you for showing me my new school, Daisy,” Nina says, and Jemma clutches at her heart, while Fitz seems to melt a little bit too. They bid farewell to the agents, and they go their separate ways. Nina only complains about being hungry once they’re a home, but then she’s almost too excited to eat the food they put down in front of her while she tells Aunty Nat and Wanda about her day and about her new school.

There’s seven other kids in her class, and the teacher Miss ‘Chandran is super-duper nice, and Miss Joseph is like the mum in the princess and the frog because Tia said that she _sings_ and Susie’s eyes don’t work like Nina’s legs don’t work. Natasha and Wanda listen attentively until Nina wears herself out and asks to watch a movie.

She starts school next week, and Bucky can’t help but be a little bit terrified.

Next week comes all too soon, and Bucky and Steve are dropping Nina off early on Monday morning- with her legs, though her wheelchair comes too and Bucky puts it at the back of the classroom by the coatrack _just in case._ Steve is explaining everything to the incredibly patient Miss Ramachandran, how to take off Nina’s legs, how to put them on, until Nina rolls her eyes at him and exclaims dramatically that _I can do it myself, Daddy!_ Miss Ramachandran laughs a little while Steve blushes so hard his ears turn red. Other children start to come in in dribs and drabs, and Nina immediately seems comfortable enough around all of them to go and say hello. She even lets Susie (Bucky is pretty sure that’s what Nina said the blind girl was called) touch her face as she says hello.

Miss Joseph is eyeing him and Steve from where she’s helping the children take off their coats and rucksacks, and Bucky is stiff under her gaze. He’s pretty sure she’s just a homophobic old woman by now, but you can’t ever be too sure.

Other parents leave, but Miss Ramachandran lets them stay for registration. She formally introduces Nina to the class.

“This is Nina Barnes-Rogers, everyone-” and Bucky zones out after that because Miss Joseph’s eyes are so wide they’re the size of saucers. So she most definitely has recognised them from the news, despite his flesh sleeve. He supposed she hadn’t realised before- Pepper has some sort of mysterious magic that makes sure that nothing is published in the papers about Nina, ever.

At the end of registration, Nina jumps up to tell them that they can _go already,_ so they kiss her goodbye and head out of the classroom.

“I’m just going to go fill out a donation slip,” Steve tells him, and heads in the opposite direction to the exit of the school nearest where they’ve parked. It doesn’t take Bucky very long to realise he’s not alone, no matter how subtle Miss Joseph thinks she’s being. He’d seen her reflection in the glass of a door ahead of him. He turns on his heels and faces her with the nicest smile he can muster. After all, he doesn’t want to ruin it for Nina and if Miss Joseph is already homophobic, he doesn’t want to make it any worse.

“Miss Joseph! Did Nina forget something?” She seems momentarily shocked by the question, before she shakes her head.

“No, no, I wanted to talk to you, actually, if you have a minute.”

“Of course, my _husband_ has just gone to grab something from the office,” he doesn’t know what compels him to say it, but he does. He expects anything but the soft smile that creeps onto her face. Not a homophobe then.

“My mom is gonna be so pleased that you got to marry Steve.”

“You _what?”_

“Oh- I’m sorry- it’s just you said husband and I assumed but I shouldn’t have because everything is obviously very different nowadays-” She sounds like Lindsey used to when she’d ramble on and on and on, stumbling over her own words.

“Yeah we’re not actually married,” Bucky backtracks, “but that’s not the point- why would she be pleased?”

“Heavens I didn’t even introduce myself properly, I just kind of assumed you knew-”

“Miss Joseph, please.”

“Winnifred Joseph, but everyone calls me Freddie,” she holds out her hand for Bucky to shake. He thought the name Winnifred had died out in popularity with his mother’s generation, but apparently not. “I’m Lindsey Barnes’ daughter.” Bucky falters then, and his hand drops from hers.

“Lindsey?” His voice breaks as he says her name. Miss Joseph- Winnifred- Freddie- who looks like Becca and talks like Lindsey- just nods.

“She’s,” he stops. He doesn’t really know how to say what he wants to so it’s crude when he swallows and asks “she’s alive?”

“Alive and kicking at the ripe old age of eighty-nine,” she tells him, beaming wide, and Bucky wonders if humour is genetic because _damn_ if she isn’t like Harriet. But maybe it’s just a figment of his imagination. Wishful thinking and all that.

“It’s real nice to see you as yourself, Bucky- sorry, James, sorry, Mr Barnes, I’m just so used to mom calling you Bucky I’ve kinda started to in my head- I didn’t mean to overstep-”

“Bucky is alright with me,” he tells her kindly, and she breathes for a moment. “You look just like Becca,” he blurts, before he can stop himself. Miss Joseph- Freddie- smiles ruefully.

“But blacker,” she teases, and laughs at her own joke that is quite obviously a well-worn one from the way she cackles- just like Lindsey. _Michael Joseph,_ Bucky suddenly remembers- that was Lindsey’s husband’s name. There hadn’t been a lot of photos of the wedding, because mixed race marriage was such a taboo. Bucky cracks a smile, and Freddie beams at him. “Really, though, Bucky, I just wanted to let you know that little Nina is in good hands- us Barnes’, we look after our own.”

His breath hitches at that. It’s what he’d told his little sisters hundreds of times over, when things got bad, when he went off to war, and they’d said it back to him when he’d told them, in complete confidence, age twenty one, that he was hopelessly in love with Steve. Lindsey had only been tiny, not much older than Nina was now- he’d had to make them promise not to say anything to anyone because he’d get in a lot of trouble. All of them had promised not to say anything. Later, when Bucky was tucking Lindsey in bed, she’d told him she had a secret.

_“What’s the secret, kiddo?”_

_“I’m glad you’re in love with Steve.”_

_“Why’s that Lindy-Hop?” It was a nickname that Lindsey only let her siblings call her._

_“I like Steve.” She told him, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Bucky had laughed at that._

“Well,” Freddie says, and twists her hands together. “Ain’t it a small world after all.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“I’ll look after your Nina,” she promises, and Bucky believes her. They part ways with a goodbye, and Freddie says she’ll see him that afternoon, and Bucky walks to their car. Pepper’s very normal car with Nina’s booster seat in the back. It’s only once he’s in the passenger seat that he allows himself to cry. He cries for Becca, for Harriet, for Lindsey and for himself. They were going to be okay, the four of them, the three musketeers and D’Artagnan, he was going to walk all of them down the aisle at their weddings, pace outside the waiting room with their husbands as his nieces and nephews were born.  They were going to be old together, he was going to tell all of their worst stories to his sister’s grandkids- because lord knows he wouldn’t have any of his own.

That had all been taken from them.

His whole body shook as he cried, and he only noticed Steve when the car door opened and immediately he had arms around him.

“She’s gonna be okay, Buck, I promise her teachers are so lovely-”

“Lindsey is alive.”

“What?” Steve’s goes very still.

“Lindsey is alive. She’s eighty-nine years old and Freddie, Miss Joseph, Nina’s kindergarten teacher, is her daughter.” He hiccups his way through the sentence as he tries to control his breathing.

“Holy shit,” Steve whispers. Bucky’s words make him blink like he’s been slapped.  

 “Yeah.”

“You wanna pay her a visit?” Steve asks tentatively, and Bucky shakes his head vehemently.

“Not yet. Tomorrow. We’ll ask Miss Joseph, Freddie, for her address. Would be creepy otherwise.”

They drive home in silence, and neither of them says anything until their sat in the garage.

“Small world.” Steve looks at Bucky kind of hopelessly.

“Ain’t it just.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you think :)


	8. Lindsey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve visit Lindsey.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I lied and this chapter is here but I'm not sure what it's going to be like updates wise so bare with

When Steve and Bucky get back home, they don't quite know what to do with themselves. It's quiet without Nina, and in the few weeks she's been with them, they've forgotten what it was like before.

"What do we do now?" Steve asks, and Bucky looks around the apartment. There's a thin layer of dust accumulating.

"What our moms used to do when they got us out of the house-"

"Drink tea and gossip about the neighbours and our child?"

"Clean up after us- also Jesus, Steve, did you ever meet our moms? Since when did they gossip?"

"Taints the soul, does gossip. You only ever be nice about people unless they give you a reason not to, ya here me?" Steve mumbles- his Irish accent is rusty but a decent impression of his mum. It makes Bucky snort. So they clean and tidy, and when Steve's got yellow gloves on and his elbows deep in scrubbing the bathroom toilet, he starts singing the rudest army songs he remembers. He sings some of the nicer ones for Nina, occasionally, but even Bucky, whose dad was ex-navy and who grew up in a rough neighborhood and went to a rough school and was in the goddamn army, still blanches at some of the lyrics he's singing now. They are completely awful and so he yells at Steve from his place in the living room.

"MAY I REMIND YOU THAT YOU ARE A PARENT AND ALSO CAPTAIN AMERICA? YOU HAVE TO SET A GOOD EXAMPLE!"

"THE KID AIN'T HERE AND YOU AIN'T NO SAINT SO I'LL SING WHAT I LIKE!" Steve yells back, and sings even louder than before, just to irk Bucky. It's more than a little bit painful, because Steve can sing but he's being purposefully bad and out of tune. When Bucky heard him sing properly for the first time it was an old Gaelic song (Casadh an tSugain he remembers- as if he could ever forget) that his mother had taught him. It was so beautiful that Bucky was convinced his ears had been spoiled for anything else, and he told Steve as much. Steve had told him to fuck off. Bucky, on the other hand, couldn't sing for shit. So he used this to his advantage to try and drown out Steve- who eventually caved and begged him to stop because he was pretty sure his ears were bleeding.

"You really know how to make a guy feel special, ya know that?"

"Anythin' for you, doll," Steve teases, and actually dips him before he kisses him silly. They are one hundred and three years old, but also thirty two- either way, too old to be acting like love-drunk teenagers. Bucky thinks that Steve has always made him feel like that, and he has his suspicions that he always will.

They finish tidying up in record time, and Bucky can't help but think of the song that Rapunzel sings at the beginning of Tangled (which Nina valiantly tries to sing along too, as she does with every song she hears. She's getting there) so the two of them collapse on the sofa and Jarvis puts on some old Laurel and Hardy movies for them. They're stupid and Steve and Bucky have seen these episodes so many times from when they used to sneak into the back of theatres free of charge because Bucky wooed the girl at the counter, so they end up talking over them anyway. Until Lindsey's favourite episode comes on, and Bucky goes quiet.

"I'm pretty sure she's dying to see you. Sent you all those photos, didn't she?"

"You don't know it was her."

"Six year old Lindsey lined up her clothes in her wardrobe according to colour and then what season they were for even though she didn't have that many. All of those photos were meticulously kept and dated. Pretty damn sure it was her."

"Yeah alright whatever."

"It's just fucking terrifying. She was a kid last time I saw her. She's eighty nine now. And she'll look it- not like us. She'll have changed and she'll be a Lindsey Barnes that I don't know."

"Don't you wanna know her now, then?" Steve asks quietly, and he's watching Bucky so intently that Bucky wants to hide.

"I do. But I'm not the same person I was."

"Neither am I. Neither is anyone after a lifetime, but that's why you gotta go see her. Don't miss any more of her life, Buck. You'd regret it to hell and back."

Bucky sighs and rubs a hand over his face.

"Why'd you always gotta be right, huh, Stevie?"

"I'm Captain America," he teases, and Bucky pinches his side in a particularly ticklish spot.

"You're an asshole, is what you are."

"But I'm your-"

"Do not finish that sentence before you thought about it in your head first."

"I'm yours, is what I am," Steve says softly, running a hand up and down Bucky's side. How he can go from immature to adorable in 0.2 seconds, Bucky does not know. But he smiles and gives Steve a kiss anyway.

"You wanna look at old photos with me? Like the old married couple we are?"

"There it is again!" Steve exclaims, throwing his hand up in the air. "Marriage talk and still no proposal!" He stamps his foot on the floor like the crazy blondes in modern films tend to do. Bucky smirks.

"I told Freddie you were my husband."

"I swear to god, Barnes-"

"You'll get your proposal, Stevie, if you really wanna marry me that bad."

"Literally since we were sixteen. Literally." He's so earnest that Bucky has to make fun of him to diffuse the tension.

"As opposed to figuratively?"

He is honest to god planning on proposing to Steve, one day. When he's a better man, he'd promised himself once, but he'd need five thousand lives to make up for all his sins, and they're pushing it with this second chance they got already, so he won't make Steve wait that long. When Nina's fully settled in, he'd decided after that, but they were here now, more or less. When he'd thought of a way of putting his love into words good enough for Steve, he decided.

"I hate you."

"Sure ya do, punk, let's go get the photos."

They eat lunch on their laps as they sit on the floor with all the old photos spread out across the coffee table. Becca and her husband on their wedding day, Harriet in her nurse uniform, Lindsey graduating high school. Becca's boys and Freddie, all in Sunday best at Christmas. Lindsey and her husband Michael. She's so pregnant in this photo that she looks like she might fall over. Michael has a steady hand on her back, and is looking at her with such affection that Bucky decides he was definitely good enough for his baby sister. He's tall, and broad, and his wide nose softens his sharp features in a kind of beautiful way. His smile is wide like Freddie's.

Bucky sniffles as he looks at photos of Becca and Harriet- he never got to see them again. There's a photo that makes him laugh, though. Harriet and Lindsey are toe to toe, scowling at each other while Becca looks helplessly at the person behind the camera- he assumes it's his mother. Lindsey is about fifteen, he reckons- she'd always been small for her age.

There's a photo he hadn't noticed before, of Lindsey in a scholar's hat and gown. She went to university. She did it. He tries to read what it says on the scroll she's gleefully holding in front of her, but it's blurred. He's so proud. His baby sister went to university. Which means she had a great job and did great things. How they'd paid for it, he would never know.

Time flies, and soon they have to go and pick up Nina from school. She squeals when she sees them and runs over to Bucky, clutching at his legs. He picks her up while Steve collects her things and chats politely with one of the other parents who has come to pick up their child.

"Did you have fun today, baby?" Bucky asks Nina, and worryingly, she shakes her head.

"I missed you," she mumbles into his neck, and he relaxes.

"I missed you too, love. But other than that was it okay?"

She hums a sort of "mhmmm" sound into his skin and doesn't let go. Freddie appears out of nowhere by his side.

"We had a few tears today, but we got out Myagkiy and Charlie did a few tricks just to try and make Nina smile, which was very sweet." That seems to snap Nina out of it, because suddenly she's clambering to get Bucky's attention.

"Papa, Papa Charlie can change shape, Papa he made his face into a duck. A _duck_! How cool is that?"

"Very cool." He really does try to not sound as weirded out as he actually is. Shapeshifting is something he's used to in comic books, not small children. Steve comes up behind them, and kisses Nina on her cheek but before he can say anything a little boy with purple hair and a face full of freckles calls her name.

"Nina your dad _actually_ is Captain America," he says, in awe.

"Duh," Nina says, and Steve and Bucky look at each other questioningly. That was new. "Why would I say he is if he's not?"

"I dunno."

"This is my papa," Nina tells the little boy, who sticks out his tiny hand for Bucky to shake. Bucky bends over and does.

"My name is Charlie Wright. It's nice to meet you Mr Barnes-Rogers." It's very rehearsed, and Bucky doesn't correct him on the Barnes-Rogers thing because he's trying really hard and it's too cute, and the lady beaming at him as she comes up behind him to help him put on his back pack looks so incredibly proud.

"Hi," she says to Steve and Bucky as she wrestles with a wriggling Charlie. "I'm Amanda," she says to Bucky. She was the mom Steve had been talking to earlier. "And you must be Nina! Hey there!"

"Hi," Nina mumbles quietly, and Amanda is distracted again by Charlie. "Where's mama?"

"At home with Grandma," she turns to Bucky and Steve. "My wife is really pregnant, and the doctors have put her on bed rest," she tells them by way of explanation. Bucky notices the bags under her eyes. "We have to rush off but let me give you my number- all the moms and dads keep in contact so we know about birthday parties and school events and things," Steve hands her his phone after unlocking it- and she plugs in her number with lightning speed that comes with being Pepper, Tony, or a PTA mom apparently. She says her goodbyes and Charlie and Nina wave until they can't see each other anymore.

Nina wriggles to the ground to run around the classroom and say bye to the rest of her new friends- she's loud and boisterous with everyone but Susie and a Chinese boy who's even smaller than Nina. Thomas, Bucky reads Nina's lips. Steve is being bombarded by the other parents, so Bucky slips away to talk to Freddie because it is a bit much.

"The other moms are loving your man- he's such a gentleman."

"Yeah, well, that's why I got there first." Freddie snickers at that.  "I know it's a bit out of the blue- but could I get Lindsey's address?"

"I've been waiting for you to ask," Freddie tells him, and evidently she has because she pulls out a slip of paper that's got the address written down. It's very creased. His hand shakes a little as he reads it- it's the house where he grew up.

"Thank you- we were thinking we'd pop by tomorrow, while Nina's at school." He says thickly.

"She'll be so glad."

Eventually, Steve and Nina manage to extract themselves, and the three of them head home. Nina is buzzing and cannot wait to tell them every single detail of her day from what she learned to what the bathrooms look like. She does in the car, and while she's playing, and while they eat dinner, and while she's in the bath, and then again when she's in bed.

"Charlie can change shape, Dad," she tells Steve, who raises his eyebrows at Bucky.

-

"Aunty Wanda! Wanda! Violet in my class can make fire! She has special practice with Miss Ram'chandan on Mondays."

-

"Papa, Papa I forgot to tell you- Miguel swims so well he's like a little fishy!"

-

"Jarvis did you know people can see the future? Susie in my class can- she can't see properly like other people but she knows what's gonna happen when we're _grown-ups_. Isn't that cool?"

-

"Tia has wings, Papa _are you listening_ she has _actual_ wings like a fairy. She can curl them up tiny or make them big like a butterfly!"

-

"Dad! Daddy did I tell you that Daniel has SPIKES coming out of his SKIN when he wants to like a puff fish!"

"Puffer fish, sweetheart."

"Whatever-" Apparently school taught her more sass than Steve or Bucky did.

"Watch your tone, young lady."

"Sorry."

-

"And did I tell you that Thomas has really good hearing and seeing and touching and smelling and tasting? That's his super power but also he doesn't like hugs unless it's his grandpa who looks after him because he doesn't have a mommy or daddy and he doesn't like hugs because it's _too much_ but Miss Joseph says that's also because he has ort'sm."

"Autism?"

"Papa got it right!" Nina sings, as Bucky tucks her in for the night. She's out like a light before he even opens a book to read to her.

"She really likes school," Bucky tells Steve while they're nursing hot mugs of tea and reading in bed. Bucky doesn't think he's ever done something more old-man-ish in his life.

"Wait until she realises she has to go until she's eighteen," Steve gripes.

"Hey I liked school! And her school is nice!"

"Nerd," Steve scoffs, but he doesn't really mean it. Everyone always thinks he was the straight A student, but while he was good, Bucky was better. And Bucky was better at not getting caught when he got into fights- probably because he didn't bruise if the wind blew the wrong way- so Steve was labelled "the delinquent" out of the two of them by teachers who didn't pity him because of his innumerable ailments, and "struggling" by teachers who did.

"I liked school because I got to see you every day," Bucky says softly, and Steve gives him a fond look before the two of them turn out the lights and fall asleep.

Nina sleeps the whole way through the night.

 

Steve and Bucky drop Nina off at school the rest morning, and Freddie gives them a conspiratorial thumbs up before they leave to head to Lindsey's home. His old home.

They get to their old corner of Brooklyn almost too quickly, and Bucky doesn't move to get out of the car. Steve squeezes his hand.

"We can do this."

"Course we can. I can go see my sister."

Bucky slams the car door shut slightly harder than necessary, and walks purposefully up to the front door, but he hesitates before he rings the doorbell. Steve places a comforting hand between his shoulder blades. Before either of them can talk, a voice calls out through the front window- you couldn't tell it was that wide open with the way the flower pots were arranged on the window sill and the curtains were drawn for the day. Both of them mistake it for Winnifred Barnes for a split second.

"James Buchanan Barnes are you gonna loiter on my doorstep like a creep or ring the damn doorbell like a gentleman? Our mother raised you better than that!"

"This is most definitely Lindsey's house," Bucky mutters, and rings the doorbell. They hear shuffling, and the thud of a cane and it takes an unbearably long minute for the door to open. Lindsey Barnes, Lindsey Joseph, Steve corrects, is absolutely tiny still. She's not hunched over with osteoporosis; she stands tall but leans heavily on her cane and her left leg. Bucky and Lindsey are just staring at each other.

"Dammit, Bucky, you did everything better than me and now you aged better than me too?" Her voice is thick with emotion, and she gives her big brother a watery smile.

"I cheated," Bucky says, his voice equally hoarse.

"Always did," Lindsey teased, and Bucky doesn't even have it in him to argue with her. She drops her cane and shuffles over to him, before collapsing in his arms. Bucky takes her weight, burying his nose in her hair, once red, now grey, just as he used to when she was tiny. When they finally unfurl from each other, Lindsey has her sharp gaze on Steve. Her glasses make her eyes huge like an owl, same as she wore in the photos they'd seen. Steve clutches tighter to the shoulder bag he's got, with all the photos in it.

"Still can't believe they turned you into a hunk of muscle," she raises an eyebrow at him and he shrugs.

"Me either, if I'm honest with you, ma'am."

"None of this ma'am nonsense, you helped Bucky change my diapers. Lindsey will do just fine," she scolds in a tone that doesn't allow for even a fraction of rebellion. She leans against the wall. "Would you grab my cane, Bucky, so we can stop hovering in the doorway and get some coffee. You still like coffee right?" It comes out like cor-wa-fee and Bucky is glad to be home. So much so, that he lets his little sister order him around. 

 

"I am eighty nine years old, Bucky, I ain't your baby sister no more."

"Am too 'cause I'm a hundred and three so I win." They argue as they come in from the kitchen to the living room, where Steve has parked himself. It's much the same, but the walls are a muted green and the lace on the curtains isn't made out of doilies they scrimped for and the bookshelves are so full they're creaking under the weight of all the knowledge Lindsey and her husband had collected. There's photos hung up on the walls, more than Steve can count, and the big old fire place actually has wood logs by it. The furniture isn't so lumpy but the coffee table is still the prized one Winnifred Barnes was given as a wedding gift by her uncle.

It's a mixture of old and new that's very settling. Lindsey is much the same. Her hair is expertly pinned in an up do that's kind of timeless and her dress and shawl are what Steve would have once labelled as modern but was now distinctly vintage. Lindsey pours coffee for the three of them before sitting in one of the well-worn arm chairs by the fireplace. One is larger than the other- the one she's sitting in was made for a lady with its plush velvet cushions. Steve and Bucky are sat on the sofa, hips and thighs pressed close together.

"Did you marry my brother yet, Rogers?" Lindsey asks as Steve sips his coffee, which is strong enough and hot enough to put hair on anyone's chest, and he splutters in a very undignified way.

"No ma'am- Lindsey- not yet."

"Better be before you two look like me, ya here me?" She scolds, and Bucky's lip quirks.

"You sound like Ma," he says softly but Lindsey just purses her lips at him.

"Yeah well you look like her with that hair- you not got any scissors in that fancy tower? Or money for a decent hair cut?"

"I like it long!" Bucky defends, squawking slightly and Steve is glad that some things never change. As Bucky takes another sip of his coffee he says something that sounds like "don't tell me what to do" but no one comments on it. It's quiet for a moment, and Steve feels like the history of this old house is settling heavy on his shoulders.

"I bought the photos," Bucky tells Lindsey, and she smiles so big its blinding.

"I'm glad you got them- only the copies, mind you- wasn't about to go and give precious family heirlooms to some Shield grunt but I've had these copies done for you almost as long as I've had the real things."

"Why?" Bucky asks, sounding genuinely perplexed.

"Because I knew you'd come home- because you promised you would and you ain't never broken a promise in your life, James." She uses his first name and it means she's being as serious and serious gets. "Also you're a stubborn bastard and there's no way you'd just let HYDRA kill you, especially if Steve was alive." She smirks and Bucky gives her a watery smile back.

"Becca and Harriet, bless them," Lindsey continued, "they thought I was nuts for staying here. But if you ever found your way back to us, you'd come here. And someone had to be waiting for you." Steve hides behind his coffee mug because otherwise he will most definitely cry.

"You went to university," Bucky says a little too loudly, very obviously wanting to change the subject. His little sister's loyalty to him was something of legend, something he didn't deserve. Yet here they were.

"I did too. So that's Dr Joseph née Barnes, BSc, PhD, thank you very much."

"Science? You hated science."

"Science is what turned Steve here into Hercules and what was keeping you alive wherever you were so science I did. Also, I changed quite a bit from elementary to high school, I should have you know."

"Excuse me?" Bucky set his mug down on the coffee table, on a coaster, of course. His hands were shaking slightly.

"I did science and I joined Shield. The Howling Commandos kept in touch with our family their whole lives, and they talked to Stark about me because god knows I could not stand Howard and his... philanthropy, but he paid for my university funds- the difference that we couldn't meet despite the scholarships anyway."

"Howard Stark paid for you to go to university."

"Partly- I paid for myself the rest thank you very much. Lindsey Barnes ain't no slacker."

"And you joined Shield."

"Are you a sound board, Bucky? Yes I joined Shield to look for you two dumbasses."

"Lindsey do you know how dangerous that is?" Bucky exploded, and she gives him a look that's so reminiscent of Winnifred Barnes that he actually contains himself.

"Bit late now to be worrying about that-"

"Harriet was shot! She died being an agent! You could have too!" Evidently this was too much to contain.

"What? Harriet wasn't an agent she was a nurse. She died because of an infection she got out in the hospital tents- I'm the agent. You been fabricating stories for us, Buck? Instead of coming to see me like a normal person would?" Lindsey was getting progressively angrier. "I shall have you know I did get shot. In my right hip which is why I gotta use this cane. Have been since I was thirty and that's when I had to start being subtle about my research instead of going out in the field for missions and collecting a little extra information on the side. Not that it mattered because no one paid attention to a woman anyway. And you would know all of that if you ever bothered to come see me before. I got contacts, Bucky, I've known you were alive and yourself again for three years now. Three. Years. And I didn't get a word from you, despite my photos and the begging to see you. They said you were "dangerous" to civilians. I told them to get lost because I ain't a civvie."

"You got shot trying to save me." Bucky croaks, and Steve and Lindsey both know that he heard the rest of it but she rolls her eyes at him anyway.

"I got shot trying to take down HYDRA, don't give yourself so much credit," Lindsey sniffed, though Bucky knew he was right.

"When did you meet Michael?" Bucky asks, desperate to change the subject again.

"After I got out of hospital while I was in recovery," Lindsey smiled softly, her whole demeanour changing in seconds at the mention of her husband. "He ran a diner not far from here, served the best damn breakfast I ever had in my life, Buck, I'll tell you that much. And we got talking and he started slipping me sweets he was trying out new from the kitchen. Just little ones that always had silly notes and riddles attached so I had to guess what was in them. And eventually, I asked him on a date because god knows we woulda still been waiting to this day if I waited for him to ask me, and a year later we were married."

"Bet George was happy about that," Bucky scoffed, trusting his hands enough to pick up his coffee again.

"George hadn't seen us for a long while before I got married. Ma kicked him out." 

"Good."

"Who walked you down the aisle?" Steve asked, wanting to know every moment of the Barnes' lives that he'd missed. Bucky's sisters were like his own, when they were kids. Lindsey grinned at him.

"Gabe Jones."

Bucky nodded- he was glad it was Gabe. He'd been a good man.

"Did all the commandos come?"

"Even the English ones. Weren't a lot of people who wanted to be friends with the Barnes girls after one of them was engaged to a black man, so my side of the church was Ma, Becca and her boys, Peggy and the Commandos. Michael's, well, Michael's whole congregation from the church his family went to turned up. We'd had to cook enough for near a hundred people- everyone he knew gave money for the wedding so we managed it, somehow."

“I’m sorry I missed it,” Bucky whispers, and Lindsey gives him a sad smile. She reaches over and pats a hand on his knee.

“I am too, Bucky, but ya here now.”

“Where is Michael?” Steve asks. He realises belatedly that that could have been a rather impertinent question, but Lindsey just shakes her head and shrugs.

“Lord knows- out with an old friend who’s back in town for a coupla days, Henry, eating somewhere they couldn’t afford as kids, I’ll bet.”

They talk and talk for hours, about everything and anything they can think of. Michael and Lindsey marched with Martin Luther-King that day with Freddie on Michael’s shoulders- they'd travelled all the way to Washngton,  and they set up a soup kitchen attached to the diner for people running from the police. She’d climbed the ranks of Shield to a respectable place before retiring at sixty-five, her and Peggy became friends, and she’d met baby Tony when he was a week old- as much as she didn’t like Howard, she loved Maria. Bucky winced at that and she stared him down across the dinner table, pointing her fork at him like it was a weapon.

“Not your fault.”

"Why didn't Freddie ever get married?" Comes up at some point in conversation. Of course, they're parents now so a lot of what they talk about is their daughters, and how proud they are. Lindsey has a helluva lot more material to fill them in on, though. 

"Oh she's- damn there's a word for it that she heard from one of the young people she worked with- she used to be in social services- we did a load of research together and I cannot remember for the life of me what the word is now- what kind of a mother does that make me, huh? Oh, it's something to do with cards- spades? Queen- no that's something else...oh! Ace. She's ace. Asexual. Also she never really found anyone she loved, though she wondered for a while if that's because she's 'arrow'... 'aero'... 'aro'! But then she decided she was avoiding labels and stuck with being just Freddie. She said she preferred being just Freddie by herself." 

"You are a great mom." 

"And I'm sure you're a great dad, Buck."

It’s only because Steve’s phone goes off with an alarm he previously set that they remember the time and have to go and pick up Nina. Bucky looks like he’s being torn in two, between his baby girl and his sister, as they get up to leave. Lindsey shakes her head at him and pats his cheek.

“Don’t you be a stranger now, okay? You come see me and Michael whenever you want- tomorrow if that’s the case or midnight on Christmas if needs be. But right now you hop to it and go pick up your daughter.” Bucky nods and hugs her tight, and so does Steve, but not before he teases her a little. Or, at least tries to.

“You’re the one that hops, lil Lindy-”

 “Steve Rogers I swear to God I will punch you. I did when I was four and I will now.”

“I’m a quite a bit bigger now.”

“So am I. And I have a cane.”

He looks at Bucky who just shrugs. _You’re on your own pal._

“Is being mouthy genetic?” Steve questions, and it’s meant to be rhetorical but he gets an answer from both of them anyway. Lindsey says ‘factually, no’ at the same time that Bucky says ‘in this case, yes’. They look at each other with furrowed brows, and completely ignoring Steve who brought it up in the first place.

“Are we gonna agree it’s a Barnes thing?”

“We can agree it’s a Barnes thing. And your girl is a Barnes, Stevie, so you got two of us on your hands now,” Bucky says. They both turn back to him, and Steve dramatically groans _what have I done_ which results in both of them glaring at him. He puts his hands up in surrender and they finally, driving a little too fast so they can pick Nina up in time, get to the school.

She rolls up to them today in her wheelchair, lifting her arms and making grabby hands at Steve so he picks her up. She says bye to her teachers and classmates, Bucky gives Freddie a quick hug, and they’re on their way.

“What did you do today, Daddy?” Nina asks as Steve is strapping her into the car.

“We saw Papa’s youngest sister, who we haven’t seen in a very, very long time.”

“How long is a very long time?”

“Seventy years,” Steve tells her when Bucky hangs his head. His cheeks are heating up in shame.

“That is _so long._ If I had a sister that would be _too_ long.”

“Sure was, sweetheart,” Bucky says as he starts the car, and Steve gives his hand a tight squeeze.

“But it’s okay now because you saw her.”

“Yeah. Yeah it’s okay now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought in the comments!


	9. For the first time in a long time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve, Bucky and Nina meet Michael

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who's been writing such lovely things in the comments!  
> This one is really for amlovabledeathmo who gave me the idea for this chapter

Bucky felt, that for the first time in a very long time, he was doing well. Nina had settled into school. She had only had one day where she really didn’t want to go, and that was fine by him and Steve- if she needed a ‘Nina day’ every now and again, she was certainly entitled. He and Steve, they each had their moments, their squabbles, but when you’ve been best friends with someone for so long, when you’ve gone through hell and back, it’s understandable. If he was being honest with himself, he was still high on the feeling of being so freely in love. Steve was too- he’d accidentally eavesdropped on a conversation with Sam.

“ _How you doin’ man?”_

_“Honestly- I don’t think I’ve felt this happy in my life. Ever. I have a daughter, I have friends, and my best friend is, well-”_

_“You’re boyfriend? Fiancé? Husband?”_

_“I was gonna say alive and well cut the crap Sam-”_

_“What’s happening on that front?”_

_“I love him. More than my heart can take. Some days it feels like it did when I was a kid and my lungs would give out at any second- but in a good way, if that makes any sense. Before- without him- it was like burning from the inside out. But I got him back, and someone up there is watching over me because he loves me too.”_

_“I think I’m getting cavaties.”_

Bucky had stopped listening at that point. He respected Steve’s boundaries. That didn’t stop him from kissing him senseless when he joined him in the kitchen later.

He’d been visiting Lindsey regularly too. Sometimes Steve came along, sometimes he didn’t. Lindsey tried to tell him to get a haircut every time, they’d look at photos, and always one of them would end up crying. They needed it, though, to hold each other and cry- whether it was tears of happiness or grief, it was together. He’d met Michael the fourth time he’d gone over, with Steve at his side this time.

Lindsey had opened the door, pulled both of them down to kiss their cheeks, and hurried them into the house.

“Oh I’m so glad you’re here! Michael’s just finishing up in the kitchen. Lord knows what he’s doing- he’s gotten very experimental in his old age.” Steve sniffed the air. There was no mistaking it, the whole house smelt of pecan pie- Bucky’s favourite.

“Baking?”

“He bakes when he gets stressed, and he knew we were having guests so there are probably three different desserts in the oven- I saw an apple pie lattice something or other before I was told to go away should I burn anything by just standing there.”

“You no good in the kitchen, Lindy?” Bucky teased, knowing full well from her stories that Michael was the one who cooked in their house. She gave him a glare that Medusa would be envious of. They settled in the living room, Lindsey poured them a strong cup of coffee, as she had the time before, and they idly chatted until Michael joined them. He appeared in the doorway about five minutes later, when Lindsey called him out for dithering and procrastinating.

Michael was elegant, and wore his eighty seven years well. ‘Something proud in his face, defiant in his being’ his mother would have said, and Bucky agreed. Even at home, he was in a shirt and tie, though his sleeves were rolled up and his tie was loose around his neck. Bucky suspected it was because he knew they were coming. Out of old fashioned habit that seemed to reignite in Bucky and Steve in this house, they stood up when they saw him. He squared his shoulders and stood with his feet apart, and neither of them could decide if he was stood like a soldier at ease, or if he was readying himself for a fight. He had to look up ever so slightly to meet their eyes.

“Before you say anything, I wanna tell you both that I went to your memorials to ask permission, and lightning didn’t strike me down so I took the lack of divine intervention as an okay-”

_“What?”_

“Michael!” Lindsey sounded exasperated. Steve was looking from Bucky to Michael, who were both looking very confused.

“What are you talking about getting permission for what-”

“I’ve been half expectin’ ya to punch me soon as you laid eyes on me after everything I heard from Lindsey and the others-” They were talking over each other until Bucky put up his hand (he’d forgone the metal arm today, Tony needed to do a routine check-up anyway)  to stop Michael’s rambling. Lindsey had decided to give up on controlling the situation and was sat back in her chair sipping her coffee like she was watching a dramatic scene at the movies unfold. Steve was stood between them, his hand itching to do something, anything, so he didn’t feel so awkward.  

“You wanna start from the beginning, pal?” Bucky said. He sounded friendly enough, but Michael still winced, taking his sincerity for passive-aggressiveness.

“I’ve been waiting for the ‘you hurt her I’ll kill you’ talk for seventy years, I was kinda expecting a punch after it’d been stewing for all these years- it’s been a long time coming- but as I said I did go to your memorial to ask your permission to marry your little sister, just in case, so it wasn’t as if I completely ignored ya.” Lindsey was looking at her husband with so much love that it made Steve’s stomach flip.

“Pretty sure you’re good enough for Lindsey if she chose you and you’re still here,” Bucky shrugged and stuck his hand out for Michael to shake. “James, but please call me Bucky, you’re family after all.” It was an introduction Steve knew Bucky had practiced; late at night when he thought Steve was asleep. Michael didn’t even blink at the proffered hand, the only hand; he was took it in both of his and smiled.

“Michael Joseph, baker, husband, father, not in that order.”

“He’s a good egg, Lindy, you keep him,” Bucky teased and winked at his little sister. “But also, Michael, I will beat your ass into the next century if I ever found out you hurt her.” The threat came with a smile and a slap on the shoulder.

“Don’t doubt it- you could with one arm and your eyes closed, I’m sure.”

 Steve and Lindsey managed to contain their howls of laughter up until that point, and it didn’t take much for Bucky and Michael to join them.

Bucky decided that Lindsey’s husband Michael “call me Micky” Joseph was easily one of the nicest people he’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. He was quick witted and funny, had made pecan and apple pies for him and Steve because he knew those were their favourites (he really, really wanted to get in their good books) and he didn’t once flinch or gawp at either of them, as so many civilians who they met tended to do. No, he treated them like perfectly normal people, save for the slightly forced excessive politeness at the beginning because he was still cautious about being the man Lindsey brought home. It was touching, to say the least, to meet someone that had respect for Bucky for simply being him, not because they feared the Soldier, not because he was an army man- just because he was him. He hadn’t felt that in a long time.

 Bucky and Steve found themselves unwilling to leave Lindsey’s home once more, when they had to pick up Nina, but she told them to go and get her and bring her here to meet her aunty and uncle.

“Daddy this isn’t the way home,” she’d accused Steve as they turned the wrong way at the end of the street from school.

“Nope, sweetheart, we’re going to go and meet some family today,” Bucky informed her, turning around to look at her as she sank back into her booster seat.

“More?”

“Yep- more people who wanna meet you. We’re going to see Lindsey and Michael.”

“Wow.”

They reached Lindsey’s house, and it was only once they’d rang the doorbell, with Nina in Steve’s arms, did they realise that they were going to have to explain this complex time-warped family tree to Nina. They’d let it slide for now- perhaps Lindsey would have some ideas.

“Well ain’t she as cute as a button, Buck!” Was how Lindsey greeted them, and Nina preened a little at the compliment. They headed inside again, and their coffee mugs were still on the table, but there was an extra, smaller one with hot chocolate in it.

“That’s for you, sweetheart,” Lindsey told her, as Nina wriggled to sit between her dads on the sofa.

“Thank you!”

“You must be Nina,” Michael’s deep voice came from behind them, and Nina turned around so fast they were surprised she didn’t get whiplash. She stared up at a smiling Micky, her head slightly cocked to the side.

“You’re Michael.”

“You can call me Micky if you’d like,” he said with a chuckle, and Nina tried out the name, though it sounded more like ‘Mike-y’. Not that Michael minded at all, he just nodded encouragingly.

“Now Nina your Papa tells me you like sweet things-”

“Yes, lots and lots!” Nina interrupted, which only made Michael grin more. Bucky supposed Nina was like a grandchild for him, maybe a great-grandchild. He had one hand behind his back, and Bucky wondered what treat he had hidden for his daughter.

“You like cupcakes, Nina?” He asked, producing a tiny purple cupcake from its hiding place in his palm, with a little sugar butterfly nested in the frosting. Nina’s eyes had gone wide.

“I never had a cupcake before.” She was very clearly enraptured by the tiny dessert, she didn’t even sound as half as accusatory as Bucky and Steve expected. They’d not gotten round to cake, yet. Sweets had made Nina sick at first, her body rejecting the extreme amounts of sugar after so long eating very plain food, so they’d started small, very small, with mouthfuls of whatever dessert Bucky and Steve were having, if they’d decided to have something other than fruit. They were both very much stuck in the mind-set that sweets were for special occasions.

“Well this one’s just for you.” Bucky didn’t know where the cupcake had come from, but he suspected Michael had a selection of delicious things to eat on hold for any point in time. Nina had him take a bite first, which was amusing for everyone as she managed to get purple icing on his nose, but when she finally did take a bite, she seemed like she was in shock.

“Nina, are you okay?”

“Papa cake is _the best_ ,” she told him very seriously around a rather large second mouthful. “Mikey makes the best cake ever.”

“Nina, love this is the only cake you’ve eaten,” Steve reminded her, but she just turned to him and gave him a look that very clearly said “ _so?_ ”

“Thank you, Nina, that’s very nice of you.”

There was a reply that could have been “you’re welcome” but it was muffled by cake.

Nina chatted away to everyone about school and what they’d done that day, and she was absolutely fascinated to learn that Miss Joseph was Lindsey and Michael’s daughter.

“Miss Joseph is called Freddie, and she’s _my_ baby,” Lindsey told her, which Nina thought was very silly because Miss Joseph was a grown-up. “She’s my baby like you’re your daddy’s and papa’s baby.”

“I’m not a baby; I’m going to be five!”

“And that is a very grown up age to be,” Michael had agreed solemnly. It wasn’t until it was almost time to leave that Nina questioned how they knew her parents.

“Are you my grandma and grandpa, like Thomas has a grandpa?”

“We can be whatever you want, sweetpea,” Lindsey tells her before Bucky and Steve even get a chance to argue. _Tell her different, I dare you,_ Lindsey tells the men in the room with a look. Nina tells Lindsey that yes, she would very much like a grandma and grandpa, thank you.

They leave with Nina on Steve’s hip (she refuses to sit in her chair) and Lindsey kisses all of them on the cheek, and she taps Nina’s nose for good measure. Michael bids them all goodbye, and he pats Bucky on the shoulder with such affection it’s as if they’ve known each other for years.

“Welcome home, brother,” he says and Bucky nods and grins his thanks.

Nina chatters about her ‘grandparents’ the whole way home- she absolutely cannot _wait_ to tell Aunty Wanda.

Bucky looks between Nina and Steve, and out the back window at the retreating image of Lindsey’s home, and he feels like for the first time in a very long time, things are doing well.

Which usually means something is about to go terribly wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you thought :)


	10. They are only Inhuman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nina and her classmates go on a school trip.

“Papa?”

“Yes, _milaya_?”

“How many more sleeps until my birthday?” Nina was sat at the breakfast counter in her pyjamas, steadily making her way through exactly eight marmalade toast soldiers, and a glass of warm milk. Bucky was so glad that his daughter was an early bird, and they didn’t have to deal with any sort of mad rush to get her ready for school in the mornings. He was sure it wouldn’t last very long.

“Two- only two more to go.” Nina was incredibly excited about her birthday, the first one she could remember properly. Bucky and Steve had invited all the children in her class to come to a party at the tower. At Nina’s request, they’d planned games, and Michael was making the cake, and all of her family was going to be there too. Steve and Bucky had extended the invitation to the parents as well, and some had declined while others had agreed they’d be there. Thomas’ grandfather had agreed, as had Susie’s mum, and Miguel’s parents were sending along his big sister because neither of them could make it, but he felt nervous in new spaces sometimes so she was going to be there.

“That is _way_ too long. Can’t my birthday be now? It’s boring waiting.”

“I thought you were excited to go to the museum?” Steve asked her as he ruffled her hair. His face was flushed from the hot shower and his hair was damp still.

“Yes! We’re going to see the _dinosaurs_ Daddy! Did you know that Miss Freddie has been to loads and loads of museums and she’s been to one about you because Grandad Mikey and Grandma Lindy took her when she was small so she could learn about you because you’re _so old_ that you have to be in a museum!”

“Thanks for that, Nina,” Steve grouched, and Bucky couldn’t help but laugh. Their daughter had a way of charming people.

Miss Ramachandran had written a letter about a month ago to each of the children’s guardians, asking if they were allowed to go on a school trip. Bucky and Steve had been hesitant, and wanted to go with them just in case because loads of parents did that, right? They helped out- but Fury had told them it was best that they stayed behind, so as not to attract any unnecessary attention to the group. They were a bunch of inhuman kids plus Nina; they didn’t need anyone else preventing them from having a normal day out. Babichev was probably still looking for her. Anyway, Fury had said they had work to do.

It didn’t stop the sinking feeling in his stomach when they waved Nina good bye at the classroom door. She’d worn her legs today, with her usual dungarees (a bright green pair, this time) and Myagkiy had his head sticking out of her backpack.

“I got a bad feeling, Stevie,” he’d said in the car, and Steve had given him a look as if to say _don’t jinx it._

Bucky was reading the newspaper, curled up in the corner of the sofa with his feet under Steve’s thighs as Steve sketched, when Tony’s voice came on over the intercom- he used Jarvis as a phone when people were in the tower.

“There’s been an explosion at the Natural History museum. Isn’t your kid there?” He sounded panicked.

“Fuck!” Bucky swore profusely as he and Steve grabbed the gear which they left in the table by the front door, for emergencies.

He had jinxed it. He prayed it was just one of the kids having a freak out, and not anything worse.  One of them could create fire, right? Violet. Nina had said her name was Violet.

It didn't take long for them to get to the Natural History Museum on Steve's bike, and they were lucky it had the Avengers insignia on it because no one questioned it when they drove right up to the museum and ducked under the yellow tape that Shield and the police had already put up. The far side of the building was still smoking from the after math of the explosion, and so they ran toward the area, ignoring everyone's calls that they needed protective gear.

Daisy was already there when they entered, and Shield medical teams were wheeling out those who hadn't survived the blast, and those who had but just barely, on gurneys. No tiny bodies, no tiny patients. The displays were destroyed and there was a human sized dent in the wall and the floor just below it. Miss Ramachandran was sat against the wall in a shock blanket, looking slightly burned as an agent- the one they'd met before- Simon? Simmonds? Checked her over.

“I’m glad you’re here-” Daisy said as she appeared beside them, tapping away on her phone.

"Where is our daughter?" Bucky's voice was low and dangerous, and sounded more like a demand than a question.

"This is a watch dog attack, so-"

"Where. Is. She." Bucky stared down at Daisy, who, all credit to her, didn't even flinch.

"We don't know. But Fitz is working on it." Bucky stormed off to find Fitz while Steve stood with Daisy, unsure of what to do. He felt like someone was pulling him limb from limb.

"The Watch Dogs are an anti-inhuman group, so they usually don't leave any survivors when they orchestrate an attack." Steve felt sick.

"They're not dead."

 "No- they're gone. Which means they're alive."

"Nina was wearing her legs- they'll have a tracking device. Tony made them."

"I'll set up a line between Iron Man and Fitz."

“Freddie-” Steve managed as an afterthought. His head was still spinning. Nina was gone.

“Miss Joseph has already been taken to hospital for burns. Nothing too serious.”

And with that, Daisy was gone. Steve made his way over to Miss Ramachandran, who was staring blankly at her shoes. She looked incredibly young, then. When Steve crouched in front of her, she looked up and promptly burst into tears.

"I am so sorry," she stammered, her quiet sobbing swallowing her words. "I promise you I tried to protect them- but one of them threw me and I, I-"

"I'm sure you did everything you could," Steve said, and it was for him as well as the distraught school teacher. “What happened?” His voice broke half way through his question.

“We’d been steadily taking the children around a few more rooms after they’d eaten. A couple of men had sat near us, suspiciously quiet, so Freddie and I got the kids to pack up as fast as we could and we left. They’d followed us, and so I took the kids further while Freddie went back to call the security guards and the police. They pushed her to the side and she collapsed, and Violet freaked out so there was a fire but I managed to contain it- but one of them threw something in the direction of the children so I went to block it with my body but it blew me backwards and I hit the wall. It wasn’t a bomb, though there was one of those at some point, and it was releasing something that made me pass out- and I woke up and they were gone.” She stumbled through her account, but was calmer than the hysterics he’d expected, which made Steve wonder how many times she’d been in a situation like this. Were they trained? He didn’t get too long to think before he could hear Bucky yelling at Fitz, who was now stood next to Simmons, both of them shaking in their boots. Only slightly.

“What do you mean you can’t track her? That’s state of the art works-”

“Captain Rogers!” Simmons squeaked, when Steve appeared behind Bucky and clasped a hand on his shoulder.

“They’ll find her, and the others, Buck-”

“They fuckin’ better.”

“One of the attackers has been detained- he’s passing in and out of consciousness, he’s been hit with some kind of toxin but we don’t know if it was self-inflicted or not- the puncture wounds are in his hands-” Simmons was rambling. Toxin. Toxin. Who would have…

“Danny,” Steve said, not particularly directed at anyone, but they all stopped to turn to him. “Danny. The kid has puffer fish skin. They’re toxic right? They can kill you? If he tried to grab him-”

“Tetradotoxin! We have to act faster and get an antidote administered if we want to-”

“Let him die,” Bucky sounded closer to the Winter Soldier than he had for a very long time. Steve wrapped an arm around his waist. Simmons was already gone by the time he’d finished his sentence.

“We need him for intel, Sergeant Barnes, if they’ve blocked any sort of tracking device, then he’s our best shot.” Fitz told them, and Bucky just about managed a curt nod.

“CCTV has been wiped. There’s nothing from just before the explosion to now. There’s no clear signs of a Watch Dog vehicle either, around here-” Daisy replaced Fitz as he answered the phone to Tony. _Mr Stark, sir, I think perhaps they have some sort of cloaking device on their getaway vehicle- yes sorry for stating the obvious-_

“Easiest to hide in plain sight,” Bucky murmured, and Daisy hummed in agreement.

“We have to find them,” he whispered, looking up at Steve with an expression more broken than Steve had seen before.

“We will.”

 

The parents of all the kids in Nina’s class were in the upstairs lobby by the time Bucky and Steve had gotten back from the museum, and Pepper was supplying them with mugs of…something as she tried to explain that they were doing everything they could to find their children.

Amanda and her wife, Louise, were huddled close, looking pale and Louise was clutching her stomach, though it was no longer round with pregnancy. Miguel’s parents and siblings, two girls, maybe sixteen and nine, and a boy of about thirteen, where holding each other, muttering in quick fire Spanish. Thomas’ grandfather was stood stoically, listening to Bruce explain what he could, and Susie’s mum was howling in the corner while her husband cried with her. Tia’s mum and dad seemed to be the only thing keeping Danny’s mum upright, and Violet’s mother and uncle were talking to Pepper.

It was such a sight of open grief that Bucky’s knees nearly gave way beneath him.

“They’re not… they’re alive,” Steve announced to the room, wishing he could put more conviction into his words. All eyes were very suddenly on him.

“Where are they?” Tia’s mum, Collette, asked, glaring at Steve as if she was burning lasers with her eyes.

“We don’t know, but Stark is working closely with Shield-”

“Fat lot of good that is-” Violet’s uncle spat, though the words seemed to surprise him as they left his mouth.

“We have the best agents looking for our children,” Bucky promised. “And Steve and I will be on the team sent in to get them.” Pepper looked at them with one eyebrow raised. _Fury will not be happy._ Bucky sent back a look that said _Fury can fuck off._ Steve and Bucky didn’t care if they were ‘too compromised’; they would go to save those kids whether Bucky was officially allowed on missions or not.

“You need to go and see Tony,” Wanda whispered to them as she entered the room, radiating a calm that Bucky knew was a façade. She was a mind reader, telekinetic, maybe she could manipulate people’s mood too, if she could control her own. He didn’t question it. Steve and Bucky sprinted up to the conference room where Jarvis told them Tony was. He, Natasha and Sam were stood over a screen, which was projecting some sort of video.

“You need to watch this. It came in a minute ago.”

Nina and her classmates appeared on the screen. It was dark, wherever they were, and they were moving. Definitely moving- the camera was shaking with bumps in the roads. Bucky and Steve scanned every single one of them- none of them looked like they’d had any serious harm done to them, save for a bright purple bruise blooming on Danny’s face.

 _These are the product of SHIELD_ a voice came from behind the camera. _These are not children, but experiments._ Nina flinched. _Experiments that need to be kept away for public safety. How can we trust an organisation that creates its super soldiers- how many of us will be turned for their army? One of them has already killed multiple civilians, another poisoned one-_ Danny and Violet were shaking. Bucky was going to personally kill whoever was speaking over the video.

The speech went on and on, and the children remained close to silent, save for the occasional whimper and sniffle, apart from Nina. When the video finally stopped, Bucky turned to Tony.

“Can you isolate Nina’s voice? Make it louder?”

Tony nodded and did as he was told, and Nina’s tiny voice echoed through the room. She was muttering the same thing over and over again in Russian.

“ _157XZN. Left. Right. Roundabout. Left.”_ Natasha translated, a new direction added every time Nina started reciting from the beginning again, and Tony looked at her like she was insane.

“Did they hit her? Is she okay? Does she do that?”

“It’s the van they’re in,” Bucky interrupted, his expression cautiously hopeful. “She’s reciting the number plate and whatever she can remember. She knew we’d be watching. She knew.”

Tony cracked a smile, though Natasha remained expressionless.

“Your kid’s a damn genius-”

“Didn’t the teacher say the gas made her pass out? Why didn’t Nina pass out? How did she see that was the van?”

“Look for it,” Sam said, and Tony brought up a map of the city through security cameras.

“I’ve located the van, sir, but nothing about it is indicating that there is anything out of the ordinary. It also does not match Nina’s directions.” Came Jarvis’ voice.

“EMPs are small right? They don’t have to be big- and Nina might be confused-” Steve was asking, but Bucky shook his head.

“Get up the video of the kids again.”

“It’s being streamed on all the news channels,” Sam supplied, and Bucky and Steve winced. The video came up again, and Bucky watched Nina more closely than before. She was gripping onto her legs, and her dungarees had been ripped down the side. She was holding her legs tight, as if she thought they should be hurting, like she did when she bruised from falling over. They weren’t moving. When Nina had her legs on, she was always moving them- her feet, bouncing her knee, swinging her legs- she made the most of her rejuvenated movement.

“Steve they took off her legs- they ripped them off her.”

“Fitz!” Tony barked down the phone which none of them were aware that he’d even rung. “Number plate 157XZN. Nina’s legs are in there- probably with an EMP. Find them and get them here. Now.”

“So we still gotta find these kids,” Sam muttered, watching the clip of Nina with her instructions still.

“We need Clint, and see if you can contact Thor and Jane on Asgard- they have Heimdall.” Natasha instructed, and Sam was off. She rounded on Bucky and Steve.

“Go and sit in the other room. You are useless to me unless you’ve had time to process and be calm.”

Her tone left no room for argument, so they did as they were told.

“We promised her-” Bucky started, but Steve shook his head.

“We’ll keep that promise.”

Half an hour later, Natasha appeared to retrieve them.

“Fitz has arrived.” Bucky and Steve leapt up to follow her to Tony’s lab, where he and Fitz were stood stock still, staring at Nina’s legs. They’d been torn off her, torn apart, and there was a tiny device sat in the middle of the mess of wiring. She left to go and talk to someone else on the phone.

“They destroyed them-” Tony mumbled, and Fitz was shaking his head.

“That would have hurt if she had any feeling on her skin, probably still did if you said-”

“Stop talking.” Bucky growled, and Fitz promptly shut up. Tony finally seemed to pull himself together, and his hands were blurred they were moving so fast. _Where is the damn thing_ he was muttering, and Fitz was just watching him curiously.

“Help me then! Small round blue thing, looks like a tracker, isn’t one. They destroyed that in pulling it apart.” Bucky was sure that he’d be pleased that Tony had installed a tracker in her legs, had it been any other time.

Soon, the tiny piece of metal was in Tony’s hand.

“Logs the finger prints of any one who touches the legs,” he said, and bounded over to a computer to upload any information he could. The room was painfully silent as he scrolled through all the information he could, and then some.

“Joey Pini, ex-military,” Tony started, and Fitz was immediately looking at his own tablet.

“Confirmed Watch Dog. Nothing much else on him.”

“Fuck.” No one was quite sure who the profanity came from.

This torture went on for hours, finding possible leads that turned to dead ends. They joined the other parents once more, showed them the video of their children. News channels appeared at the base of Stark tower, as they always did when something went wrong, but every journalist was carefully handled by Pepper, deftly dodging their questions.

_“Is it true that the child of the Winter Soldier and Captain America is amongst the children captured?”_

_“The Winter Soldier does not exist anymore, only Sergeant Barnes.”_

_“Was it one of the children who caused the explosion, forcing the watch dogs to interfere as concerned citizens?”_ That one really made Pepper mad.

_“The Watch Dogs attacked those children and their teachers, one of whom is in hospital at the moment getting treated for serious burns from a bomb that those ‘concerned citizens’ set off. Those children are not dangerous, only Inhuman, and they do not need to be treated the way you are treating them.”_

They got a call from Lindsey.

The other parents eventually returned home, but each was assigned an agent to keep them updated.

One of Coulson’s team, Yoyo, she’d called herself, came to see them. She handed them Myagkiy, slightly scorched and a little worse for wear, before she left again.

The sun sank behind the New York skyline, and they were still following loose leads from wherever they could- someone telling them they’d heard children screaming from inside a car, someone else saying they’d seen a little boy with blue hair.

Clint arrived, and Sam came to tell them he hadn’t managed to get a hold of Thor, and Natasha sent Bucky and Steve to their apartment. They needed to sleep- the others would wake them if anything happened.

Bucky handed Steve his arm, and told him to shut himself in Nina’s room. Lock the door if he had to. Steve had protested.

“Bucky, _please,_ don’t do this-”

“It’s not safe for you; I can’t lose you too-”

“SHE’S NOT GONE! WE HAVEN’T LOST HER!”

“Just _go_!”

Steve did not go to Nina’s room, he sat outside the bedroom door, one hand tracing the pattern of the grain, and one hand holding Myagkiy to his chest. She was alive. They were going to find her.

They had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe I should apologise...  
> Let me know what you think! I really appreciate your comments.


	11. Without You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone tries to find the children.

Bucky woke up crying. He'd had a nightmare- Nina lying in the chair, the chair they used to put him in, unresponsive as he yelled to get her attention through glass windows.

_Just wake up for Papa, Nina please I'm here._

_Take me! Let her out and take me!_

_Steve's eyes, wet with tears, his mouth set in a thin line as it did when he was angry._

_You let her go, Bucky. Why did you let her go?_

Real Steve, not dream Steve, had his arms wrapped around him before Bucky had even registered he was in the room. Had he been screaming? What time was it? If he was having an episode then why wasn't Steve leaving-

No. He'd let Steve sleep in their room with him. He'd had an episode the first night- he'd broken the desk by the window. He was himself by morning, he'd let Steve look after him for once; he'd laugh at the reversal of their roles over time if he'd had any laughter left in him. It had gone with Nina _. She's not gone._ They'd showered and Steve brushed his hair and did it in the usual bun, they didn't eat or have their usual coffee- they'd changed and downed a glass of water each before leaving for the conference room, where Jarvis had told them the rest of the team were. Steve looked more tired than Bucky had seen him in years. His eyes were puffy and red from crying, and his shoulders drooped.

The conference room went quiet when they entered. Natasha took it upon herself to deliver the news. She was the only one who they wouldn't immediately start yelling at, apart from Bruce, maybe- but he wasn't there. No new leads, they'd been searching all night, Thor was still not responding. Daisy and her team were scouting every Watch Dog base they knew of, and had special ops teams on standby near all of them should the children be taken to any of them.

At 9:47am, another video came through.

 _"We've had orders from our superior,"_ said the man behind the mask. Same voice as yesterday, probably Joey Pini. There's a crackle of white noise behind the sound of his voice. Bucky had thought of at least twelve different ways to kill this man with the pen he had in his hand. _"You can have the children back, if you prove you are better. Find them, we'll let you have them. For every hour you do not come..."_ he trailed off, as if he was expecting a sound behind him. But nothing came. The white noise just got louder. He shrugged, and the white noise went back to its original volume, trying to seem as if this was the plan. It was not the plan. Bucky had spent enough time as a prisoner of war, as the Soldier, to know that that pause was meant to be filled with a scream. " _You know what’s coming. You cheaters did not earn your strength. Remember that."_

The recording ended, and this one was not transmitted live.

"They were expecting a scream."

"What?"

"There's a kid off camera. They were expecting a scream. Turn up the background audio and turn off the white noise."

It took Stark longer than Bucky would have liked, but they got there eventually. The noise had been added over the top, as an afterthought, it was easily enough to get rid of it.

"It's cold, like Russia, but there's no snow. Made us walk inside. Everyone covered in mud. _Fish_ hurt another guard and they took him away," Nina's voice was unmistakable, and she was muttering, though in Russian. No wonder they covered any background noise. Suddenly there was a slapping sound, but she did not cry- she screamed "FIND ME!" She was muffled then, by the way her voice was drowned out, but she continued to try and scream.

"Natasha-"

"We'll find her, James."

Natasha translated for everyone in the group, and soon Sam and Rhodey were scanning every single meteorological reading from the last twenty four hours. They couldn't have gone far on Watch Dog resources, Daisy and Fitz informed Tony over the phone.

"There's only one place where the Watch Dogs have a base that fits Nina's description- near the Canadian border."

"We're leaving. Now."

"The videos encrypted but nothing's undoable-" Daisy's voice filled the room, with Jarvis amplifying the phone call. "Says Arizona. They're trying to throw us off."

"Split the team and we go to both," Bucky ordered. "We don't know what kind of bullshit they're pulling. One of them, both of them, maybe, is a trap. We need to be fast or who knows what they’ll do."

 

He'd been right- both had been a trap. By the time they'd reached the supposed spaces, any traces of the children were long gone save for a body with traces of Danny's toxin, which Simmons identified. 

When they got back to the tower, there was another video waiting. No Watch Dog lackey this time, just a video of the children in a dark room- it could have easily been a dungeon. Danny was with them this time, Thomas was groaning in a corner, rocking back and forth, Violet was sat next to him, and Nina was muttering quietly to herself. Suddenly, Susie froze, and her head fell back but before she could hit the floor, Tia and Miguel were holding her up and Charlie was cradling her head in his hands like this was standard procedure. She opened her mouth to speak, and the video cut out.

"Is she having a seizure?" Clint asked, worry vibrating off him.

"She can see the future. Didn't realise it was so...physical." Steve said, as the video replayed itself.

"What was Nina saying?" Bruce spoke for the first time in a while, and Wanda was quick to translate.

"Orphanage. Longing. Ten-"

"Her triggers. She was saying her triggers. Babichev is there _fuck_ Steve Babichev is there." Bucky was panicking, his eyes darting between Nina on the screen and Steve by his side.

"We have to move. Now."

"We still don't know where they are. They're sending us on this wild goose chase-" Tony's reasoning was met with a stony glare from Steve.

"We have to find them."

A team was sent off, parents were informed, Pepper continued to placate the media. Steve and Bucky were forced to eat by Wanda and Bruce, and nothing came of their searches, apart from an encoded message.

_It's been eight hours. Perhaps you aren't as super as you thought?_

 

It was nearly eleven when Steve broke. He collapsed against a wall, and cried. Bucky was quick to rush to his side, as was Bruce, who tried to make him count his breathing. It took three goes before Steve seemed to be paying attention to anything he said.

"Why the fuck are they doing this? What does it prove? Why do they need them?"

"I...I don't know, Steve. But when we find them, they'll pay for it."

 

Natasha was having a similar conversation with Daisy a few rooms over.

"They get a power kick out of it," Daisy said grimly. "They've done this before- making parents pay ransom charges, and then pulling their child away when they come to get them. We can't track what's happened to those children- they disappear off the map. But this isn't the first time something like this has happened- it was just more public."

"How has it not been picked up by the media before?"

"It has. By other Inhumans and supporters- tiny groups. But no one cares- just like no one cares when kids of colour go missing."

"You reckon those other kids are alive?"

"I don't know which would be better for them, being dead or not."

Natasha prayed that Thor would respond to them sooner.

Another video came in at one in the morning- it was only a few seconds long. Tia and Danny were curled up next to each other- his face and arms were bleeding in spots. They'd tried to pull out his spikes. Susie was asleep between Charlie and Miguel, and Miguel was facing Violet, stroking her hair as she cried. Nina was watching Thomas from the other end of the room, as he concentrated very hard on his hands, making very tiny movements, like he was scared to get caught.

"He's signing," Clint told them, but his voice caught in this throat. "He's signing happy birthday."

Bucky left the room and screamed.

A message flashed up on the screen.

_You will never find them._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully there'll be another chapter up soon...  
> as always, I love hearing what you thought!


	12. Clever Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nina comes up with an escape plan.

Nina counted to ten, ten times over, and then she’d repeat her _words,_ the nasty ones that made her brain go fuzzy. The bad men outside had said _the doctor_ was coming to see them later, he was already _upstairs,_ wherever that was, and she was just being careful. Papa said she should be careful, like when she was climbing in the playground, or wheeling around too fast; or eating food that was too hot. They hadn’t had hot food in a long time. They hadn’t been outside in a long time- well, they’d been outside but they hadn’t been able to _look._

“Nina,” Susie whispered- it was late, Nina was tired, and Thomas’ Spiderman watch had the little hand on the eleven and the big hand on the three but that could be morning or night time, Nina didn’t know.

“Yeah Susie?” Susie had had _a sight_ earlier, but she didn’t say anything for a long time. She could hear them though, so she hadn’t hit her head or anything, which was good.

“What do your Dad’s look like?”

“Tall and big. My Papa has a metal arm- it’s cold when you touch it.”

“I saw them-”

“You _did?”_ Nina’s squeal woke up everyone else, if they had really been sleeping. They’d all been pretending to be sleeping like sleeping lions at school so that the bad men left them alone. If they looked like they were sleeping, they got bored watching them. Also, Thomas would stop groaning and feel a little bit better without all the noises.

“What is it?” Tia asked, and Nina was grinning like the purple stripy cat in Alice in Wonderland.

“Susie saw my dads! In her _seeing_ she saw my dads!”

“How can she know?” Charlie asked. He’d been crying- his nose was all red.

“His arm was cold, like metal.” Susie told them, and she was smiling just a teeny bit.

“You’re being _loud,”_ Thomas groaned. They all said they were sorry but he just shook his head. “There’s people upstairs being loud too.”

“Upstairs?” Miguel asked at the same time that Nina asked “people?”

“Not big people. Little people.”

“Little like us?”

“Some of them. Some are bigger but they aren’t grown-ups.”

They pretended to sleep again when Thomas said someone big was coming. Nina waited until the big hand on his watch was on the one again until she sat up again. Thomas sent her a sign- they’d been learning small ones at school for when he didn’t feel like talking. _Happy birthday._ It would be if her dads came to get her.

 

Later, one of the bad men came in and grabbed them all- Thomas cried and cried when he got picked up, even though Nina told them to _put him down you big meanie_. She got a pinch on the leg for that.

They were moved to a different room- there was a small gap at the top of the room- not big enough to wriggle through but big enough to see that it was day time. Day time on her birthday and her dads hadn’t got them- even though she’d tried sending messages when the bad men came in with the camera. _They have not forgotten. They are trying to find you. You just keep moving- like when you play hide and seek._

“It smells funny,” Thomas groaned, and Nina frowned. She couldn’t smell anything. Maybe it was from outside. Violet gave Thomas a marble she had in her pocket and he rolled it around and around in his hand until inside his head wasn’t banging any more.

“What’s it smell like?” Nina asked, and Tia frowned at her. It was a funny question to ask.

“Like when fruits been outside too long.”

“Tia?”

“Uh huh?”

“How high can you go?”

Tia ummm’ed for a little bit, before Nina pointed up to the gap in the ceiling. “Can you go that high?”

“My brother usually catches me, or Mommy or Daddy-”

Nina told her to be quiet because the bad man was outside the door, Thomas said so, and then he left so that meant they had until the big hand was on the six for them to come around again.

“Charlie can catch you.” Nina said decidedly.

“I can?” He asked, and he sounded a little worried. He was chewing on his lip and his hair was going white.

“Yeah! Like when Miguel was jumping and fell on you and you blew up like a balloon!”

“I- I think I can do that.”

“Great!” Nina had a plan- one she had to get the others to do for her because they’d taken away her legs. _Meanies._ Danny also couldn’t do much because his face and arms were really, _really_ hurt from when they’d taken him away. His skin was covered in little scabs now, where his spikes usually came out. Nina knew what it was like to have people pull you apart, so she hugged him close. 

So here was the plan: Tia was going to fly up to the gap in the wall and see what was outside. Charlie would catch her if she fell over. Violet was going to make a flash when the guard came in to get them _because he would come in to get them_ and Miguel was going to run at him and knock him over, and Charlie was going to stretch and take his phone out of his pocket. Adults always had a phone in their pocket. (Also Thomas said he heard him talking on the phone.) Tia had a sash on her skirt so they were going to tie it around the guard’s eyes and then Danny said they could use his socks to put in his mouth- just like the videos of the Winter Soldier when he wanted people to be quiet. But the Winter Soldier was being scary- they were staying _safe._ Nina would call her dads because she knew their phone numbers off by heart now- Papa had stuck them on the fridge- and then they’d come save them.

Really, she was a very clever girl, just like Daddy and Papa said. Uncle Bruce had said in a super secret voice when he was talking to Daddy and Papa that maybe she was even _super intelligent._

They practiced over and over until five minutes before the bad men came around again. Tia had to roll up her wings and put her t-shirt back on after flying, so they had to give time for that. The guard did come around, at exactly when the big hand was on the six, and so that gave them until the big hand was on the twelve to find out what was outside.

“What’s outside Tia?” Nina asked, when Nina finally reached the gap. She was holding on tight to the wall.

“Grass. More Buildings- there’s a lot of trees.”

“Is there any fruit?” Charlie asked, and he sounded funny because he was all round like a bean bag.

“Peaches! There’s loads of peaches on the floor!”

And then she lost her grip and fell. Charlie caught her though, and they were giggling quietly- Thomas didn’t tell them to be quiet- but there was a guard coming- very soon _like right now guys right now!_

Tia was pulling on her t-shirt and Charlie hadn’t gone back to normal in time for stretching. _Oh no oh no it wasn’t going to work-_

But the guard came in looking absolutely _furious_ and still Violet managed to make a big flash (luckily nothing set on fire) and he was covering his eyes and Miguel ran at his legs, tripping him over. There was a very not nice _crack_ when the guards head hit the floor, but he wasn’t bleeding _a lot_ so it wasn’t too bad. Tia covered his eyes and Danny stuffed his socks in his mouth and Thomas ran to get his phone.

They all huddled in the corner once they pushed the man out of the door and shut it behind him. Nina got up the key pad, and they all waited while she typed in her Papa’s number. The phone rang seven times before he picked up.

“Papa?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's all gonna be okay! Yay!
> 
> As always, I'd love to know what you think!


	13. I will always find you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky and Steve, along with the rest of the avengers, save the children.

Bucky almost missed his phone ringing. He’d left the room before he had a screaming match with Tony- none of them needed that right now. Steve had followed him, put a soothing hand between his shoulder blades- and he could actually feel it because he’d forgotten to put his arm on this morning- and was whispering in his ear that it was going to be _okay._ His voice was shaking, like he knew he was making a promise he couldn’t definitely keep. Bucky had _failed,_ he couldn’t even keep _their daughter_ safe, it was her _birthday_ and they’d lost her, what kind of parent-

“Ice Man pick up your damn phone!” Tony had called from inside the conference room. “It’s been going for ages!” That, in translation, meant it had rung once. He marched in and picked up the phone, and looked at the display- it wasn’t a number the phone recognised. It wasn’t one he recognised- it was still ringing-

“What if it’s them?” Steve whispered, and Bucky panicked. How had they reached him what had they done to her- Steve hit the ‘accept call’ button for him, and put the phone on loud-speaker.

“Papa?” Nina’s voice came through very quiet, and Bucky choked up. Nobody in the room was breathing. “Papa is you there?”

“Nina,” was all he could manage, and then there was a quiet _he’s there!_ in the background of the call. She was with the other kids- “Nina are they making you call me?”

“Nope! We got the guards phone and we pushed him over and now we have ‘til the big hand is on the three before they see he’s not back at normal time- Papa come get us we’re in a room under the floor and there are peaches _everywhere-”_

“Nina we’re coming okay? Stay put, sweetheart we’re coming.” Steve said, winding his arm around Bucky’s waist.

“I _can’t_ move Daddy they took my legs. Is Uncle Tony doing his thing and finding us?”

“Sure am Tiny!” Tony called down the phone, and Nina actually giggled- God she was okay-

“Are all of the other kids with you?” Bucky asked, and he was glad Steve had his arm around his waist because he was pretty sure that he would have collapsed by now.

“Yup! Everyone is here with me and Thomas said there were little people upstairs too-”

“I had to go see a doctor,” another small voice said. Danny- he sounded very upset.

“I don’t know if it’s _the doctor_ but he sounds mean he pulled out Danny’s spikes-” Nina was babbling, and then suddenly there was a hushing sound that cut her off. “Thomas says they’re coming Papa come get us come get us-”

The phone line went dead.

“They’re in Georgia- an abandoned children’s hospital in Georgia- was previously run by HYDRA-” Tony was muttering, bringing up a visual of a hospital that looked like it was on the verge of crumbling down. Of course that’s where Babichev was, the fucker.

“Go get your arm, I’ll get the plane going.” Natasha said, and she practically flew out the room, with Clint and Wanda following close behind.

“There’s more than eight kids in there,” Sam said, making his way past Steve and Bucky. “I’ll call in Johnson and her lot for back up.” He clasped Steve’s shoulder, and then Bucky’s, just before he left. _It’s gonna be okay._

“I’ll stay in the med-bay of the plane. Won’t wanna hulk out with kids at risk- but I’ll be there to check up on them.” Bruce promised, and then it was just Steve, Bucky, Pepper and Tony left. Pepper was already on the phone to all of the parents of Nina’s friends, and she was looking at some sort of list on her tablet.

“We gotta suit up, Soldiers, your kid needs you.” As annoying as Tony was, he seemed to know the right thing to say to kick their butts into gear.

 

It wasn’t long before they were outside the hospital. Bucky had fought with Fury over the phone on the plane; _there is no way you can keep me from going and getting my kid._ Leading up to the hospital was two lines of peach trees- but no peaches. They were all on the ground, bruised and rotting and making their air smell sickly sweet and alcoholic. Bucky gagged- he wasn’t wearing a mask, he’d spent too many years behind one as the Winter Soldier.

“Scanning the building,” Tony’s voice came over their comms, “only one space that seems to fit Nina’s description- tiny gap in the wall, east side, we can only get in that way if I burn a hole in the wall-”

“That’ll blow our cover-” Sam said, and Tony just scoffed.

“Pretty sure they already know we’re here, they’re just waiting-”

“Or running,” Steve said, his voice dangerous and low. They’d run when they found Nina last time, Bucky wouldn’t be surprised if they were doing the same now. Though, this was the Watch Dogs- ‘thick headed dumbasses’ Daisy had said.

“Iron Man, Captain, Sarge, you take the east side and get your kids out,” Fitz’s unmistakeable accent came over from the second plane which he, Simmons, Daisy, and an agent called May had come in. Simmons had joined Bruce on the Avengers plane, and Daisy and May were out in the field, though Bucky had no idea where. “Daisy, May, you go in with Black Widow and Scarlet Witch- find the other kids. Falcon, Hawkeye, go in from the roof. Find Babichev.”

“Do not kill him,” Steve’s firm order came in next. _He’s mine,_ was the unspoken thought that Bucky very much shared. He’d get Babichev- once he knew his baby girl was safe.

He and Steve sprinted to where Tony was- he was lying flat on the ground, his face against a tiny window. Steve fell to the floor next to him, and Bucky took out the sniper in the window.

“Nina!” Steve’s voice was reverberating around him, coming in from his comms but also he was right next to Bucky.

“Daddy you found us!”

“Hey Tiny you and your friends gotta scramble to the other side of the room so I can bust a whole in the wall and come get you out okay?”

“Got it!”

There were several patters of footsteps and the familiar sound of Nina dragging herself across the floor, and then the bright light of Tony’s suit’s hand phasor. Soon, there was a hole in the wall big enough for Bucky to get through.

“Any larger and the place might collapse,” Tony joked as Bucky handed Steve his gun and slid through into the cell where Nina was being kept. The room was tiny, with barely enough room for him to stand up in. The walls were singed like there had been a tiny explosion, and the door had been melted to the wall- but it had been busted open again. It was unusually hot for such a tiny space. Tell-tale signs of Violet, who was not there.

The kids were huddled together in the corner, Nina, Susie, Thomas and Danny hidden behind Charlie, Miguel, and Tia. All of them had grubby faces, and their hair was sticking to their foreheads and necks like they had run a marathon. None of them, save for Thomas, were fully clothed. Tia was stood in her underwear, her tiny wings unfurled and wilting in the heat. Charlie and Miguel were in their t-shirts, and Nina, Susie and Danny were just in their trousers. The rest of their clothes and shoes were in a muddled pile in the corner.

“Papa!” Nina cried, reaching out to him, and Bucky ran over to her, tears already streaming down his face. The other children were distracted enough by his presence that they didn’t listen to the gun shots going off outside- Thomas was looking resolutely at him, with his hands over his ears. Soon enough, the gun fire stopped. They must have got everyone.

“Nina, _milaya,_ I’ve got you.” He picked her up and held her close, and the other children made a little circle around his legs. “Where’s Violet?” He looked down at them, and they just shook their heads.

“They took her-” Nina started, and her bottom lip trembled.

“Violet’s not here,” Bucky informed the rest of the team, and Steve swore. Bucky had to keep calm- the kids would sense if he panicked. Clint and Sam told him they were looking for her.

“Alright I’m going to hand you up to Steve and Tony and we’re going to walk you back to the plane okay? And Bruce will make sure you’re all okay, and Sam and Clint are finding Violet. But you gotta put on your clothes and shoes first before we can move outta here.” As he went around dressing them all, making sure they’d put their shoes on the right feet, they protested.

“Papa they took my legs-”

“They took my cane-”

“My feet hurt-”

“We’ll carry who we can, okay? It’s going to be alright just a little patience.” He set Nina down, having finally struggled her into her t-shirt, and hiked Susie and Danny into his arms, before lifting them up to the hole in the wall were Steve and Tony were waiting. Steve huddled them against the wall, sticking his shield into the ground in front of them to protect them. Miguel and Tia and Charlie were next, and soon it was just Thomas and Nina.

“Thomas?” Bucky asked quietly, crouching in front of the little boy, who was curled up in a ball as far away from anyone as possible. “Which would be better- the metal arm or the normal one?”

“Metal,” came a very quiet whisper. Bucky talked him through the motions, getting Thomas to stand up and walk over to him, to wrap his arms around his neck so he could lift him to Steve. Tony had flown off into the air- Bucky could hear the phasors. Thomas went to Steve, and was soon hidden behind the shield with the other children. It looked so small against Steve, but it was a fairly sizeable shield.

“You found me, Papa,” Nina whispered as Bucky gripped her to his side and hoisted them out of the cell.

“I will always find you, Nina. Always.” She buried her face in his neck, avoiding looking at the sun after so long in the dark. He held onto her tighter.

“Alright kids you stay between me and Bucky, okay?” Steve told the children. He had Susie in his arms and Danny clinging to his back under the shield, like a baby koala. Bucky picked up his gun off the ground and fixed it to his metal arm, supporting Nina with the other.

“You gotta stay close and do exactly as we say.” All of them nodded.

“We got Nina and co, but not Violet.” Steve said, and then Thomas spoke.

 “What about the others?”

“There’s twice as many as us, Thomas said!” Miguel piped up, and the others were nodding.

“Try five or six times as many,” Natasha’s voice came over the comms.

“What?” Clint all but squawked.

“There’s gotta be about fifty kids in here-” Daisy was breathing hard, and the sound of chains breaking followed her words.

“All handcuffed,” Wanda finished for her. There were more chains breaking.

“Five to eight in each room, eight rooms, we’ve taken two each.” That was May- it was the first time Bucky had heard her speak.

“I’ll go back to Fitz,” said Simmons, and it sounded like she was running. “Split the kids up with you, May and Daisy you come my way, Black Widow and Scarlet Witch to Bruce.”

“On it,” came four voices.

“Why isn’t this place teeming with people?” Tony sounded more angry than confused. “Sixty kids and no people.”

“You’ve taken out four, Cap got three, Sarge got a sniper and Hawkeye got five. The others took out about ten between them.” Fitz recited, though he sounded distracted. “But where’s-”

Neither Steve nor Bucky paid any mind to the end of his sentence as the soft _whoosh_ of a bullet caught their attention. Steve dived in front of the kids, his back to the shooter, so any bullets ricocheted off his shield. He dropped to the floor, swinging Danny round to his front, and Bucky and him created a cocoon around the children- the trees provided little cover but something was better than nothing. Bucky got Thomas to close his eyes and cover his ears, before resting his forearm on Steve’s shoulder so he could take a shot at the sniper. A pop of red, and the Watch Dog was down.

“Sam we need you!” Steve was all but yelling, as Bucky took another shot. The children were crouched between them, heads between their knees.

“I’ve got you covered-” Sam said, and there was a small, but booming explosion. Tony was a fucking genius, with those missiles attached to the wings.

“There’s two more heat signatures in the building,” Stark was saying as Sam dropped to the ground, his wings spread.

“I got the kids, Barnes, go. It’s Babichev- there’s no one else it could be-”

“Ones kinda small and it’s really weird, it’s way too hot-” Tony continued. There was a kid with Babichev- it was Violet- who the fuck knows what was happening there.

“Tony get here,” demanded Steve. Sam had taken Danny and Susie, and Steve took Nina from Bucky. “Buck’s gonna go back and get Violet and take out Babichev- you me and Sam are gonna take these kids back to the plane. The other kids have Wanda and Nat which means force fields and guns so they’ll be okay-”

“Daisy and May are nearly back with the other half,” Simmons’ voice came over Fitz’s comms.

Bucky looks at Steve, who mouths _I love you._ He nods and mouths it back, and kisses Nina’s head before he sprints off. He will return back to them, safe, and with Violet, and Babichev will be dead.

“Down this corridor, turn left, up the stairs and it’s the door on your right.” Fitz was feeding him instructions, and it was the loudest thing Bucky could hear apart from his own heartbeat- even running, he knew how to keep quiet. There were whimpers from behind the door, and Bucky slipped in, barely even breathing so he wouldn’t be noticed. He switched off his comms, ignoring the long list of profanities that Clint was spewing- he didn’t need any distraction right now.

It was a prep room, like you’d go into before an operation. Babichev’s files were everywhere, medical reports and personal histories strewn across the floor like he’d knocked everything over in a fit of rage. Violet was tied to a chair, her hands gloved and dripping with some sort of chemical. Her eyes went wide when she spotted Bucky- she recognised him from when he’d dropped off and picked up Nina from school. He lifted a finger to his lips, the universal sign for _quiet,_ and she nodded.

Babichev was pottering around in the room over; Bucky could see his silhouette behind the frosted glass. He lifted some sort of medical instrument, and it looked like some sort of scene out of a shitty horror movie where the mad scientist cackles over his torture implements.

He crept over to Violet and undid her bindings, and took off the gloves. Her hands were red and raw underneath, like they’d been burned- which wasn’t possible, her skin didn’t react to flames- and then a familiar smell hit Bucky’s nose. The chemical was flame retardant. If Violet was trying to set herself free, or if she’d panicked, she’d try to set something on fire. The chemicals would have stopped that, would have soaked into her skin and god knows what that would have done-

She launched herself into his arms the moment she was free from her restraints, and he held her close. Babichev was still clattering around the operating theatre, not having noticed any change to his ‘patient’. Bucky wondered if he even knew that there was a raid going on, if he was aware of anything at all outside his own head.

He carried Violet to the corner of the room and tucks her into a tiny space between the wall and a cupboard. He covers his eyes, and then his ears, and then puts his hands on her shoulders. _Close your eyes, cover your ears, stay put._ She whimpers, deafeningly loud in the near silence of the room, but still Babichev doesn’t notice. Bucky picks up a screen and places it in front of her like a barricade.

Bucky glances over his shoulder to check on her one last time before he slips into the operating theatre.

Either the camera was kind to the doctor, or he’d changed drastically in the last few months. His hair, once blonde and now an ashen kind of yellow, was falling out and his skin was a ghostly shade of white. He turned, still ignorant to Bucky’s being there, and continued to mutter to himself in fast and furious Russian. His eyes were crazed, and the pale blue of his irises seemed to bleed into the whites of his eyes. He looked like a walking nightmare. Bucky cocked his gun, making his presence known.

Babichev turned from him again, as if he hadn’t noticed, but he spoke in loud Russian.

“ _Who knew it would be so easy to get the Winter Soldier to fall into my lap?”_

 _“Torturing children is easy for you?”_ Bucky spits, and holds his tongue as he wants to say _the Winter Soldier doesn’t exist_ out of habit.

_“I do what I have to- the Watch Dogs see their enhancements as a biological cheat, a weapon to be afraid of- but you and I, we know the benefits of being stronger, yes?”_

_“Why are you here, if you don’t agree with them?”_ Bucky’s grip tightens on his pistol. He doesn’t know why he’s talking- but this feels like the closest he’s going to get to getting even with the HYDRA doctors who fucked him over so many times. Babichev doesn’t seem the slightest bit concerned by the weapon in Bucky’s hand, which is concerning in itself.

 _“The money. HYDRA have fallen to pieces, they are a sorry excuse for an organisation, and medical advancement requires funding, Yakov, surely you know that?”_ Babichev calls him Yakov, _James,_ and it makes Bucky’s skin crawl. He’d been called it before, once or twice- he vaguely remembers a woman calling him, calling the Soldier _Yasha,_ like she loved him, and he hates it. It had been during a _cognitive functioning_ test- they’d put him in a room, with a girl. She was dark haired and lithe, and had a skull tattooed on her shoulder. They’d put him in a room with her, and fed him instructions, seeing how far he’d go, whether he’d blindly do as they said-

He clenched his jaw, banishing the memory from his head. His breathing was still even, and Babichev was none the wiser to the melt down he was staving off. He was going to kill him. If the Soldier had been there, he would have strapped Babichev to the hospital bed and used every single fucking one of the instruments on the damn table to show him what it was like to be in that much pain. To make him sorry for taking these children.

But Bucky knew that bastards like him wouldn’t ever feel sorry for their actions in hurting others- they’d only feel sorry for getting caught.

 _“-and where else am I going to get such easy access to children who could be naturally like you and the Good Captain? The Watch Dogs had been collecting long before I joined them, but they needed direction, rather than just ‘murder’ you see?”_ Babichev is still talking. Bucky might strangle him with his own intestines. 

_“I do not.”_

_“Well, I don’t know what I expected from a thing that is half man half robot- actually, tell me, Soldier, do you feel? Or did they wipe that from you completely? I only ask for my research-”_

_“Turn and face me.”_ Bucky tells him, instead of answering his questions. Babichev does as he’s told, entirely too relaxed. _“Why are you not afraid of me?”_

_“Because what father could kill the man who gave him his daughter?”_

_“You did nothing but hurt her and these children.”_

_“They were going to die-”_ Babichev is losing his cool ever so slightly as he looks at Bucky- too proud to look away and too cowardly to face death with his chin up. _“You wouldn’t kill me.”_ He sounds as crazed as his eyes look, and Bucky thinks that yes, he’s truly insane.

 _“Killing you would be a kindness, after what you have done.”_ Babichev looks fucking terrified. Finally.

 _“Yakov,_ James,” Bucky really hates the way he uses his name, like they are familiar. “ _Do not leave me to the Soldier-”_

_“The Winter Soldier doesn’t exist.”_

He’s fast, and within a second, Babichev crumples to the ground, blood and brains and bone splattering the pristine white hospital equipment. Bucky spits, it’s a sign of disrespect that will last until the end of time, and leaves, slipping his gun into its holster.

He gathers Violet into his arms, and she sobs silently into his neck as he runs back to the plane with her.

“It’s okay, sweetheart, I got you. You’re safe now,” he whispers to her as he flicks on his ear piece, and Steve’s voice crackles over the comms.

“Did you kill him?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Bucky and Violet are hurried onto the plane, and into the already swamped medical bay. Natasha and Clint were handing out bottles of water and whatever food they had on the plane, explaining everything they could, while Bruce examined each and every one of them. There were kids of all ages, some were as young as Nina, and some looked about eighteen.

Thomas was taken to a separate room with Wanda, and Charlie stayed with him, while the others sat on a gurney with Nina. Steve had not leave their side, and sat on the floor next to them, Nina’s hand tight in his. Bucky put Violet down next to Nina, who hugged her friend close, and brushed a hand over his daughters head. He collapsed to the floor next to Steve, and grabbed his face in his hands, kissing him softly. They were alive. Nina and Steve and all the other children were safe and alive and Bucky _did not care_ about anything else.

“I got you,” Steve mumbled when Bucky pulled away.

“I love you.”

“Til the end of the line, Buck.”

Bucky curled into Steve’s side, closing his eyes and breathing deeply until a familiar set of footsteps made their way over to him.

“How many kids are there?” Bucky asked Natasha, who was looking at some sort of data base which Pepper had sent her. Clint was trying to calm some of the kids who were in hysterics, but it wasn’t many. Most of them seemed to be in shock.

“Fifty one- including Nina and the others, fifty nine. There should have been sixty three-”

“Should have been?”

“These are all the Inhuman kids who have gone missing in the US in the last year. Clint found bodies while you were dealing with Babichev.”

“Fucking hell.”

“We’re sending in SHIELD agents to clean up and to take the bodies so they can be buried at home.” Before Steve or Bucky could say anything else, Tony’s shrill voice echoed around the med-bay.

“No Nina! We can’t bring them all back to the tower!” At some point, he’d made his way over to his niece, and was now in a heated argument with a four year old. _Five,_ Bucky corrected himself with a wince. Nina was five now.

 “They have to go home, like we’re going home,” Sam told Nina as he came in, and Nina pouted. Apparently, having fifty-one siblings sounded like a great idea to her.

“We need to make a stop- these planes can’t take this many people- and I can’t hold them up back to New York,” Wanda appeared in the doorway.

“We don’t have a base close enough-” Tony started, but Sam held up a hand to stop him.

“My mom has a ranch and once fed an entire church congregation outta our backdoor kitchen.”

“Where?” Tony sounded almost comically desperate.

“South Carolina.”

Steve hadn’t seen Tony ever move so fast, even in the Iron Man suit, as he ran to the front of the plane to remap their route.

 

Sam had called his mother and explained the situation- she’d quite happily agreed to let them stop by. Bruce called Simmons and let her know the change in plans, and asked about the other kids she had in her care. Some were more hurt than others, some were dehydrated and malnourished- it was much the same as Bruce had observed. No one was in need of emergency medical care, apart from that. Bruce had put some sort of balm on Violet’s hands and Danny’s face, and other than a mild complaint about it stinging a little, both were fine.

Clint had picked up Babichev’s files on his way out, which he and Wanda were going through. Much like the first time, Nina sat on Bucky’s lap, tracing one hand over his metal arm with the other on his heart as they read through the files. Steve was sat so she was tucked between him and Bucky, and was stroking her hair. Soon enough, she was fast asleep, and they were free to talk.

“What is it with this guy and none computerised shit?” Clint asked, not directing the question at anyone in particular.

“He said the Watch Dogs were paying him more money than HYDRA.” Bucky told them, and none of them questioned how he’d obtained the information. He’d talk to Steve later.

“He was hiding with them to avoid being tailed by you. Also HYDRA- they didn’t like it that he lost Nina.” Clint went on, and Bucky’s armed wrapped tighter around his sleeping daughter.

“He’s a piss poor super villain if he keeps everything written down in a diary,” Tony muttered angrily as he tore through sheet after sheet of medical files and personal notes.

 “What did he do to Danny?” Steve asked, and Wanda shuffled around some papers before she found the right one.

“Pulled out spikes to see if they’d regenerate immediately. They didn’t, which he suspected means they wouldn’t ever. _The only unfortunate side effect will be scarring. But remove all the spikes and he would be a normal child. The only difficulty in this procedure is that Patient 056 has to be under stress for the abnormal skin ‘spikes’ to appear, so he could not be sedated for the procedure. He seems to have the same toxin present in puffer fish.”_ Wanda read off the paper, her voice faltering half way through. No one spoke. He was so tiny, and they’d put him through that torture- how could they explain any of this to his mother?

“He put flame retardant on Violet’s hands to stop her escaping. It kind of burned her hands, if her hands could get burned,” Bucky let them know, and Wanda looked at him like he’d slapped her.

“Sadistic bastard.”

Nina woke up them with a mumble of _don’t say bad words, Uncle Tony._

 

It wasn’t long before they were at Sam’s mother’s ranch. Mrs Wilson was stood on her back porch with an apron on and a smile on her face. She watched as the two planes landed in her backyard, and her jaw dropped as the Avengers and fifty nine children spilled out of the loading bays.

Tony had elected to stay on the plane, along with Wanda. His excuse had been, _I don’t do parents,_ and Wanda had to call Fury with a full debrief. The agents had stayed back so they could clear out more space and make calls to let the parents of the missing kids know that they’d been found, and were safe with them.

“There’s a lot of admin that comes with saving the day,” Fitz had joked as he flicked through the ever-growing amount of files he was going to have to fill out, before he signed off.

“Sammy!” Mrs Wilson called when she saw her son, and the two of them had matching grins on their faces. “It’s so good to see you, my boy.” She hugged him close- and he had to bend down quite far for her to reach his shoulders, but soon she was pushing him out of the way and was scanning the crowd of children in front of her.

“Oh the poor dears, they look like they haven’t had a proper meal in weeks!”

“Some of these children are malnourished, Mrs Wilson-” Bruce told her, having quickly made his way over to the old woman. She frowned at him, though it seemed that she was frowning more at his words than _him._

“I’ve fed a fair few people in my day, young man, so don’t worry I know what I’m doing.”

“She’s volunteered with a lot of charities, and spent a lot of time in various countries around the world,” Sam began to explain, but he shut up as she waved her hand at him. She made her way over to Bucky and Steve instead, but she wasn’t looking at them.

“So you’re the Nina my son has been telling me about,” she said to the little girl. She had her arms crossed, and had a smirk on her face.

“Yes ma’am,” Nina said quietly, shrinking into Bucky’s side.

“None of that ‘ma’am’ nonsense, you call me Grandma Wilson.”

“Yes.”

“Glad to hear it.” She turned on her heel and called to her son. “Sammy! There’s big pots of rice inside and a tonne of paper plates- you start dishing out!” Sam saluted his mother, and she scowled at him- _the cheek of that boy._

 Mrs Wilson was a calming whirlwind, if such a thing ever existed, of a woman. She made quick work of introducing herself to all of the children, and got them to sit down in little circles with the other kids who they felt most comfortable with, and had Natasha and Clint wondering around, comforting anyone who needed it. Bucky and Steve were sat on the floor with Nina and her friends- Nina in between Bucky and Steve, Danny on Steve’s other side and Violet next to Bucky, and all the others opposite. Sam was put to work handing out food to all of the children while Mrs Wilson gathered the youngest ones around her and went about feeding them herself. It wasn’t until Sam handed them their own food did Steve and Bucky realise that a lot of the kids were watching them- because they were still in uniform.

“Sam- you reckon we can escape and change yet?”

“My ma won’t let you outta her sight until those plates are clean, nice try.”

When Sam came round again, it was to clear up, and all of Nina’s friends had clambered into Bucky and Steve’s laps, apart from Thomas, who was close and gripping tightly onto Bucky’s metal hand. Natasha went to help Mrs Wilson and Sam, while Clint went back to the jet to make sure everything was okay. Some of the other kids had crept closer to them- apparently the Captain America uniform and seeing Steve and Bucky with Nina had encouraged the kids to realise that they were adults to be trusted.

Steve had started singing and Bucky was hugging Nina close as she sniffled. Everything had come crashing down at once for her and she’d burst into tears, as some sort of belated reaction to the shock of the past few days, and so Steve sang. He stopped as Nina’s sniffles subsided into hitched breathing, just letting her breathe with Bucky.

“Why’d you stop?” One of the older kids asked- she looked about fifteen, and was rocking a little boy in her arms. So Steve continued to sing- anything and everything he could think of. Some of the children joined in with the songs they knew, most stayed quiet, but they didn’t stop until Mrs Wilson came out again. She and Sam had spent a better part of the afternoon turning every available space in the house into a place where the children could sleep, if they wanted to.

She took the ones who did inside, and those who didn’t stayed with Steve and Bucky. Sam came out with coffee for the two of them.

“I know I need some.”

“I’ve called the parent of every single child here,” Daisy declared as she appeared by their side, making everyone jump. “Those close enough are coming to get them- right now.”

“What’s close enough?” Bucky asked. These kids were from all over.

“Some are four hours away.”

“How are we keeping the press at bay?” Sam looked at the kids surrounding them. The last thing they needed was nosy journalists. 

“According to Tony, Miss Potts has threatened to castrate everyone personally.”

“That’ll do it.”

“Is my mom coming?” One little girl asked, who’d perched herself next to Bucky. She looked about eight.  

“What’s your name, kid?” Daisy had a bright smile on her face that would set anyone at ease.

“Tallulah Reichardt.”

“Yup! She’ll be here super soon.” Daisy confirmed after checking through a list on her phone, and Tallulah promptly burst into tears.

“What’s the month?”

“June!” Nina told her proudly, not quite understanding why the other little girl was so upset.

“I haven’t seen my mom since Christmas!”

Bucky’s heart broke- so many of these kids would have only seen Watch Dogs for so long, they might never recover. Nina clambered off his lap and over to Tallulah, wrapping her tiny arms around the other girl’s shaking shoulders.

“She’s coming to get you! Just like my dad’s came to get me! It’ll be alright!”

The next few hours were spent waiting, and the hours after that, parents started turning up. Crying parents thanked Bucky and Steve, who were mercifully no longer in uniform, for finding their children, and Mrs Wilson set about making huge amounts of coffee and tea for everyone who wanted it. Bruce and Simmons went to each family, carefully telling them what their children had been through, giving them the numbers of SHIELD doctors and therapists near them who would know how to look after their children.

 

By nine o’clock that evening, all the children had been returned to their homes. Coulson had personally gone to the families of the children who would be returning home in coffins. SHIELD was paying for their funerals. Tony had given enough money to each family for any medical bills, and Pepper had called all the families of Nina’s friends to Stark tower.

Danny’s mom had collapsed to the floor as Danny ran into her arms.

Susie’s mom and dad had hugged her so tight she complained she couldn’t breathe.

Thomas and his grandfather wept, and Violet’s mum and uncle showered her with kisses.

Miguel’s parents had to settle for hugging him around his big brother and sisters as they tackled him into a hug, and Tia’s big brother refused to let go of her so neither her mother or father could reach her.

Charlie was held in between his moms, crying hard when his baby sister gripped his finger.

All of the children were safe- the fifty nine that they’d managed to save. Daisy had sworn to avenge the other four. Steve had repeated their names to himself over and over. _They would not be forgotten._

 

“You came to get me,” Nina said to them when they all finally collapsed into their own bed, in Steve and Bucky’s room.

“Of course we did,” Steve kissed her head, a protective hand laid on her stomach.

“You’ll always come and find me?”

“Always, Nina,” Bucky promised again, rolling over onto his side so she was bracketed in the middle of the bed by her dads.

Steve sang her to sleep, and for the first time in three days, Bucky allowed himself to breathe.

Nina was home. They’d found her. She was safe and she was home.

“I swear on my life,” he whispered, when Nina and Steve were both asleep. “I will always find you. In this life and the next and any after that, I will love you, and I will always keep you safe.”

It was a promise for the both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phew that was a long chapter- I hope you liked it! Let me know what you thought!


	14. The Birthday Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nina finally gets her birthday party!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's all just very fluffy from here on out I promise.

It took weeks before any of the parents could leave their children at school. It wasn’t that the school wasn’t safe, Daisy and her team had tripled efforts to make the school as safe as any SHIELD base, and Tony had thrown in an idea or too- including trackers under the kids’ skin (Bucky had been horrified- he still had the scars from where he had to dig out his trackers with a blunt kitchen knife- Tony had quickly realised his joke was not all that funny)- it was that neither the parents, or the children, wanted to let each other out of their sight. If Nina slept in her own room, which was a rare enough occasion, then either Bucky or Steve had to stay with her. Danny’s mom, Makayla, had told Bucky that he’d insisted on following her everywhere, including to the toilet, when before he’d been quite happy to be left alone to play if she had to make a phone call in another room.

Not a single parent complained, and not one of them blamed Bucky or Steve- which was a miracle in itself. Bucky had never been more surprised than when he and Steve received a plethora of gifts from scarves to flowers, from the parents to express their gratitude for finding their babies. Susie’s mother, Christina, had even kissed his cheeks when she handed him her gift- he’d been so stunned that Steve had to do all the talking. He’d stopped bothering with the fake skin sleeve a while back, and even though the parents knew what he had been, they trusted him now.

It was a new, though not unwelcome feeling.

By the last three days of school, all the children managed to leave their parents at the door. Danny’s mom had been the first to leave him ‘alone’, her bosses at work wouldn’t allow her any more time off. Danny had curled up into Bucky’s arms and sobbed, his whole body shaking. Steve had to be restrained from following Makayla to work and giving her boss a stern talking to- they couldn’t interfere with people’s lives unless they asked for it- and Makayla Lewis was not a woman who admitted defeat easily.

On the last day of school, the parents crowded into the classroom to give Miss Ramachandran and Freddie their thank-you cards and gifts for looking after their children. The children had cried, and Miss Ramachandran had narrowly avoided tears, but it was a consolation that they’d still have ‘Special Skills Lessons’ with her. Nina had cried more at that.

_“But Daddy I don’t have super powers!” Her tears were more angry than upset at the prospect of her classmates getting to see her teacher in one on one sessions, and not her. She liked the first grade teacher, Miss Jacobs, well enough, but Miss Ramachandran ‘was special’._

_“Nina,” Miss Ramachandran was rubbing a soothing hand in circles on Nina’s back as she clung to Steve’s legs, “you can come see me whenever you need to okay? I’m not going anywhere.”_

_“You don’t need superpowers!” Miguel insists, and the other children nod along._

_“Nina is super smart,” Thomas informs Bucky, as if it’s news to him. Bucky seriously agrees._

_“Also also also also you have metal legs!” Violet chips in. “And that is super duper  and cool.”_

_Nina gets Violet in a bone crushing hug, and all of sixty seconds later, you would never have guessed there’d been tears._

By the end of the first week of summer holidays, it was almost like everything was back to normal. Nina wasn’t wetting the bed any longer; she could sleep in her own room a few nights a week, she was happy to stay with the other Avengers without her dads.

And then Steve had to go on a mission.

“Daddy you can’t go!” Nina had insisted, standing with her feet apart and her arms crossed in front of the front door, as if she could stop Steve leaving. He almost dropped his duffle bag and picked her up instead; promising to never leave again, but Bucky’s metal hand on his shoulder reminded him that he still had work to do. It was a small terrorist group (‘alt-right’ the file had said. Steve had rolled his eyes- they were terrorists) in the mid-west. He would be back within twenty-four hours, with Sam and Natasha at his side. He didn’t know why he was needed, they’d done well enough without him after they brought Nina home, but Maria had insisted.

“Nina I gotta go- I’ll be home before bed time tomorrow. I promise-”

“You can’t promise that!” Nina had accused, and Steve deflated. She was right, he couldn’t. But he could hope.

“Nina, _milaya,_ ” Bucky tried to soothe as he crouched down to her height, but his pet name was met with an icy glare. “Dad has to go stop the bad guys, like when he got them for me and when we got them for you- both times.”

“Why aren’t you leaving then too?”

“Because I have to look after you, silly!” Bucky said with a forced smile, and Nina looked wholly unimpressed. Steve dropped his bag and crouched next to Bucky so she could look at both of them properly.

“I’ll call you, how about that? Papa calls me when I’m at work _all_ the time, so you can call me too.” Bucky had agreed he wouldn’t be Emergency-Only back up this time. They couldn’t leave Nina without either of them.

“Fine- before bed time and in the morning and after lunch.”

“You drive a hard bargain, kiddo, but I’ll try,” Steve grinned, and kissed her cheek. She flung her arms around his neck and squished her cheek to his.

“Stay safe,” she said very quietly, and Steve hugged her tighter.

“Daddy will be with Aunty Nat and Uncle Sam,” Bucky reminded Nina, and that seemed to melt away the tension in her shoulders just a little bit. “She’ll kick his butt if he doesn’t stay safe.” Nina laughed at that, and went from Steve’s arms to Bucky’s. Steve traded his daughter for his kit, and he and Bucky stood.

“How about we do something real special when I get home? How does that sound?”

“What about…” Nina scrunched up her face as she thought. “Can I have a birthday party?” She sounded cautiously hopeful. They’d never got to do her birthday properly after The Incident. She and the other kids had been too traumatised. Bucky and Steve and the other Avengers had bought her a few small things, and they’d sung happy birthday and had ice cream, but otherwise they hadn’t done too much. They’d taken her to Lindsey and Michaels, and Freddie had been there, and Michael had taught Nina how to make fairy cakes. It had been quiet.

“Sounds like a great idea to me!” Steve said, and Bucky nodded enthusiastically, making Nina giggle. Steve’s phone beeped.

“I’ll be home as soon as I can- I love you,” he said to them, giving Bucky a chaste kiss and brushing his nose against Nina’s before he rushed out the door. He looked over his shoulder before the door shut- Bucky knew that look, it was one he’d seen too many times as he’d shut Steve out of the bedroom on bad days- _I don’t want to leave you._

The apartment seemed empty without him.

“S’not fair,” Nina grumbled, resting her head against Bucky’s shoulder.

“Fares are for tourists, kid,” he shrugged, same as his mom used to say to him in the years when they didn’t have a car and they couldn’t afford a cab to avoid the pelting rain. Nina, who was a Barnes-Rogers after all, rolled her eyes at him.

“How about we discuss plans for your party in the bath?”

 

Steve did call before bed, he sang to Nina over the phone (they could both hear Sam snickering in the background of the call, and then he made a kind of winded sound suggesting that Nat had punched him- lightly) and he called the next morning over breakfast, and miraculously he managed to call after they’d eaten lunch as well, though in the last call he sounded a little worse for wear- not that Nina picked up on it, but Bucky did. He’d have to check Steve for bleeding and bruising because lord knows he wouldn’t stick around long enough for medical before he came back to them. He was really awfully predictable.  Sweet as you like, but predictable.

He came home at 5:38pm, with bruised ribs and a cut on his jaw but nothing worse. Nina was all too glad to see him, as was Bucky. When Nina finally let go of her dad to run to get Myagkiy so he could say hello too, Steve and Bucky had a moment to themselves. Steve was sat at the breakfast bar, and Bucky stood in front of him, between his legs.

“You’re safe,” he whispered as he pulled away from their kiss, cupping Steve’s face with his hands as Steve gripped his waist.

“Had to come home to my best guy-”

Nina announced her presence with an unnecessarily loud _“excuses me”_ and Steve grinned.

“And my favourite gal in the whole world!”

Nina made grabby hand motions, and Bucky lifted her and Myagkiy into Steve’s lap.

“In the whole _universe,_ ” she corrected Steve, and he laughed.

“That’s right baby, in the whole universe.”

“I am _NOT_ a _baby_!” She squawked, and Bucky flinched at the high pitched noise. She had a helluva pair of lungs on her, for such a tiny person.

“No of course not, sorry Nina,” Steve said sincerely, but he was grinning the whole way through his apology.

Bucky would not trade moments like these for anything in the whole universe.

 

They have Nina’s birthday party in the common area of the Avengers tower. All the children from her class come, and their entire families are invited, as is Clint’s and all the Avengers are there, even Jane and Thor and Darcy (Thor has not stopped apologising since The Incident and tried to make up for it by bringing Nina an entire palace worth of things from Asgard. Bucky and Steve did not let him bring all of it.) Lindsey and Michael and Freddie come too, and Michael makes Nina’s birthday cake which is covered in blue icing and she’s absolutely beside herself with excitement before any of her friends even get there.

“Happy birthday, Nina!” Lindsey tries to congratulate the wriggling five year old in her arms, but Nina is having none of it.

“We can deal with this, right?” Bucky whispered to Steve, biting his lip and clenching his partner’s bicep.

“There’s only gonna be ten kids that are five and under, we can do this. We’re one hundred years old, Buck, we’ve been in tougher situations.”

They had not, in fact, been in tougher situations.

Or that’s what it felt like as they chased around the tiny children, all hopped up on a metric tonne of sugar each, with how much cake and ice cream and juice they’d had, and tried to get them to do, well, anything other than scream.

The Avengers seemed rather content to just sit back and watch chaos unfold- the other parents took pity on them after a while and helped out.

“Not so easy, is it Cap?” Clint said as he handed Steve a pint of lemonade.

“How do you have five?” Steve asked, looking slightly shell shocked. He was sure Bucky’s little sisters’ birthday parties had been much tamer.

“I understand that you’re a raging homosexual Cap, but surely you get how everything works-”

“That’s not what I meant! My God stop talking!” Steve all but yells at him, earning himself a few odd looks from the other adults in the room, and Bucky just raises an eyebrow at him. Steve is pretty sure he’s laughing at him, so he glares back. "Also- bisexual. Get it right." Clint is most definitely laughing at him, but he just signs "sorry" and then claps him on the shoulder.

“Look at her though, it’s so worth it.”

And Steve does look. Nina has a smile on her face that could outshine the sun as she’s chatting away to Nathaniel on her left and Violet on her right. Danny and Charlie and Tia barrel into them, and soon Thomas and Miguel join in and they’re sat in a circle playing a game that seems to have a very complex set of rules, going by the bossy tone Nina’s taken on.

He’s so proud that she’s so happy. Despite everything, perhaps he and Bucky are doing a good job.

It’s Makayla that interrupts his musings. He takes a moment to properly look at her as she talks- she’s young, twenty-five at the most, and her head is shaved to the scalp. She doesn’t wear a wedding ring, and she has bags under her eyes that are darker yet than her skin.

“Steve I am so sorry but I just got a call from my boss, he wants me at work, and I’m going to have to leave Danny here- I’ll ask Jason and Collette to take him back to theirs and get my babysitter to come get him from there because it’s not too far off and I don’t want to drag him away from his friends just yet-”

“But it’s a Sunday.” Was the only reply Steve could think of- he was stunned, what kind of man was her boss?

“What?”

“No one works on Sundays. You shouldn’t have to go.”

“Waitresses work on Sundays,” she tells him, and Steve has the sense to know when he’s being told off, so he makes a sheepish face of apology. Her phone beeps again, and she glances at it. “I have to go, I’m sorry-”

“Don’t be- we don’t mind looking after Danny for a while at all, we’ll drop him home when you get there.”

“I don’t want to be an inconvenience-”

“You’re not. Either of you. I’ll show you out.”

Steve walks her to the elevator, and asks if he can order her a cab. She insists she’ll take the subway.

“How many jobs do you have, Makayla?” he asks, and she gives him a look as if to say _how did you know?_ He shrugs in response. She had a look about her, the same determined one Winnifred Barnes had that screamed _I will do anything for my kid, even if it’s killing me._ Also he may or may not have noted when he was putting his number into her phone that at least two of the contacts had (BOSS) written next to them.

“Three,” she tells him. “Goodbye Steve- thank you for the lovely party.”

“We’ll see you when we drop Danny home.” And with that, the elevator doors shut. Bucky put an arm around his waist.

“You okay?”

“Just thinking.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Bucky teased, and Steve rolled his eyes.

“You think we can threaten her bosses into being nice?”

“Steve.” Bucky’s tone is very final.

“You’re right you’re right I need to stop. I just worry.”

“I know. But not everyone needs saving.”

“I know that.”

“Then act like it.”

He gives Steve’s hip a squeeze before running over to clean up a mess the children have made. Nina has chocolate all over her face- when or how, Steve does not know, but he heads her way anyway.

Just before they all hit their sugar crash, Steve manages to get a photo of all the kids together, which he promises he’ll send round. (Or rather Bucky will because he’s much better than Steve at these things).

Nina and Danny fall asleep by six, after all the other children have left and before Steve and Bucky have had a chance to clear everything away. Tony insists he’ll get his bots to do it, and the two super soldiers insist they’ll do it, but Pepper tells them to pick up the sleeping children and take them home. Clint and his brood agreed to retire for the evening as well, and the others just wanted to enjoy the peace and quiet for a while.

“I had a lovely time, Bucky.” Lindsey patted his cheek before she stepped into the elevator with her husband and daughter to head home. “Come and see us soon.”

Bucky promised he would, and kissed her cheek goodbye, and then went to help Steve with Nina and Danny. They carried them downstairs and put them down in Nina’s bed, pulling off their shoes and changing Nina out of her princess dress into a pair of pyjamas. Pepper appeared with a pair for Danny five minutes later, to no one’s surprise.

Bucky and Steve collapsed in the living room, with their phones on and nearby, with every intention to watch movies and relax until Makayla called them to drop Danny home.

“We’re not old. We are not going to fall asleep after a children’s birthday party like old men,” Bucky said through a yawn, which was quickly copied by Steve.

“No sir we are not.”

Bucky’s phone ringing loudly woke them both up about two hours later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooooh we're nearly at the end folks! One more chapter to go!


	15. Pride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The avengers head to pride- and Bucky has an important question to ask Steve.

“Nina it’s going to be busy as hell so you’re gonna have to sit on my shoulders, okay?” Steve asked, and Nina shrugged.

“Don’t say hell.”

Bucky fist bumped her, and Steve hoisted her onto his shoulders as they left the subway station. Bucky rolled his shoulder, gripping at the junction where metal met flesh. Steve knew he was rearranging the fake skin sleeve through his t-shirt. His absolutely hilarious t-shirt which read “world’s okayest pansexual” which Steve had bought him. Steve, in all fairness to him, was wearing a matching “world’s okayest bisexual” shirt. Tony had called them disgusting and couple-y, and Natasha had pinched him, hard.

Nina was very much enjoying the fact that she got to wear every single colour at once- mint green dungarees, rainbow shirt, pink baseball cap- and what was even better was everyone else was wearing all different colours too.

_“Papa,” she faux-whispered on the train._

_“Yes, Nina?” He replied in a similar tone, and followed her pointed finger. There was a drag queen with rainbow coloured hair and make-up, and a bright pink glittery dress on. Nina’s mouth was making a little ‘o’ in wonder._

_“The princess has rainbow hair,” she said a little louder, and the lady turned to look at her. Nina immediately flushed and tried to hide behind Bucky, but the lady just laughed._

_“Thanks, sugar!” She winked at Nina, who decided to be brave._

_“How did you get your hair like that?”_

_“Stood under the end of a rainbow,” the lady teased, and Nina nodded, as if it was the obvious truth._

_“Papa you should do that to your hair.”_

_“Daddy can instead.”_

_“Daddy’s hair isn’t long enough!” Steve tickled her sides and kissed her nose, and the lady was grinning at them. The train stopped, and she pranced off in her heels (a true skill, Natasha remarked) and called back to them just before the train doors shut._

_“Have a great pride!”_

The streets were teaming with people. Bucky and Steve had looked at pictures online before they decided to come, but nothing had really prepared them for the sight of so many people in so many colours, who were all like them. A bunch of kids ran past them, screaming a name and laughing as they all engulfed someone else into a hug. Bucky watched in amazement- they weren’t afraid. They had rainbow stickers stuck to their cheeks and paint on their faces and flags on their shoulders like capes, and they weren’t afraid.

Steve very nearly jumped in front of them in defence when a police officer walked up to them- but he just told them to shuffle away from the front of the station so they didn’t block the entrance. They all apologised, and he told them to “have a good time” and it took Steve a solid minute to get his heart rate back to normal having realised they weren’t going to get hurt- not like they would have when he was young, had he ever been out like this.

“You guys okay?” Natasha asked, bringing Bucky and Steve back to the present.

“Yeah yeah, all fine,” Bucky told her, his eyes flicking over to where the kids had been as he grabbed Steve’s hand.

“I wanna see the parade!” Nina pulled Steve’s ear as she leaned down to tell him, and he grinned at her antics.

“Let’s go.”

They had to walk for a while, with Natasha and Wanda behind Sam and in front of Bucky and Steve, so no one got lost from their little group. Rhodey, Tony and Pepper were paving the way through the crowds in front of Sam- Bruce had decided not to come, he thought the crowds might be a bit much.  They finally made their way to a finally less densely packed part of the street, where they could get a good look at the floats and marchers going by. People were cheering and whooping, and Nina was doing a little dance of her own on Steve’s shoulders any time a float with music came past. The marchers were throwing everything from sweets to condoms at the crowds, which Steve was a little more than horrified by, and Bucky thought was hilarious- making a point of pocketing one just to embarrass Steve a little more. Nina, luckily, ignored the entire exchange.

It was in a quiet moment between floats that Tony called over to Bucky.

“Hey look there’s a kid over there like you!”

Bucky looked across the road to see a group of kids, all different ages, all different races, staring at them. There was one with bright blue lipstick and eyes wide as saucers, wearing a shirt that read “pansexual pirate likes all kind of booty”. She turned to her friend- a tiny kid with curly hair and round, owlish glasses and said something that looked suspiciously like _I fucking called it!_

“They’ve recognised us,” Natasha said, a lot more calmly than Steve or Bucky felt.

“We are with Tony, who has a very public face,” Wanda shrugged, and looked back over to the kids. Blue Lipstick and Owl Glasses were ‘subtly’ pointing them out to their friends, who were all getting more and more excited. No one else around them had noticed. Bucky made quick work of labelling them, out of habit more than anything else, because though they probably weren’t a threat, you couldn’t be too careful- Man Bun; The Camera Woman; Tall Dark and Handsome; Teenage Sam; Eyeliner Kid, Princess Tutu and Did You Know I’m Gay.

“What’s wrong?” Nina asked, and Bucky just shook his head.

“Nothing, sweetheart, we just gotta get walking in a bit, whaddya say?”

“After the next float!” So they stayed, at Nina’s request, and when the float passed and Bucky looked again, the kids were gone and their space had been filled by a group that were hollering at some of the marchers.

“S’okay we lost them-” Steve said, shifting Nina on his shoulders slightly.

“Excuse me, Mr Stark?” Came a voice from behind them, and all of them turned to see that the crowd of kids had somehow made it over to their side of the street. It was Teenage Sam who’d called for Tony, and The Camera Woman was showing the rest of them photos. Blue Lipstick was watching Teenage Sam, though, and stood in front of the rest of them, mimicking Bucky’s protective stance, but she looked more relaxed than he did.

“Why me?” Was Tony’s response, and he was frowning in confusion more than anything else.

“I just wanted to say I like your building-”

“Thanks I do too.” The kid seemed a little stumped by that, and Blue Lipstick was heading their way.

“Well, actually, I think there’s a minor design flaw-”

“Excuse me?” Tony sounded a little enraged, but Teenage Sam did not flinch. Blue Lipstick was next to him now, her eyes flitting from him to the Avengers to the group behind her. She rested a hand on his arm, as Pepper rested hers on Tony. “What’s the flaw? What’s your name, kid?”

“Joshua.” Teenage Sam said, after a little internal deliberation.

“Let it go, Tony-” Steve said, and that’s when Blue Lipstick turned to them. She was smiling at them when she read their t-shirts, and positively beamed when she looked at Nina. She waved at the little girl, and Nina waved back, very pleased.

“I like your outfit,” Blue Lipstick said in a tone universally used for kids, and Nina preened a little.

“Thanks! Did you eat a blue ice lolly?” Nina asked, ever the curious one, and Blue Lipstick laughed.

“Nope! It’s just make up.”

Tony and Teenage Sam- Joshua, were still talking about the design flaw of the building, though Joshua seemed to not be giving him the details he wanted.

“Come on _Joshua,_ ” Blue Lipstick said, pulling him back a little so he’d get the hint. The way she said his name gave Bucky reason to believe that was not, in fact, his name. “We gotta go back to our friends.” She turned to Steve and Bucky then. “Your kid is adorable and I like your shirts.”

With that, they left, and Blue Lipstick looked like she was trying to herd cats as she hurried her friends along.

“Have a great Pride!” One of them yelled back, Steve wasn’t sure which, and they all burst into giggles. Blue Lipstick sagged a bit in exasperation.

“That was…interesting,” Rhodey commented, and that was it. They didn’t get any one else coming up to them for the rest of the day, but they got a couple of looks from kids- it was only ever kids that recognised them when they were in plain clothes, no matter what.

Bucky and Steve got texts from Amanda and Louise, telling them to join them for lunch in a café they’d passed two minutes before- Charlie had spotted Nina. So all of them crowded in with Amanda and Louise, Charlie and Lola (which Sam found endlessly amusing for some unknown reason to Bucky and Steve- though Amanda and Louise were laughing as well) and the waiters pulled up tables so they could all sit together. Pepper did her usual ‘if any images of today get released to the press I will personally make your life extremely difficult’ routine, sickly sweet smile and all, with Rhodey as her ‘body guard’.

Nina and Charlie were sat together, valiantly making their way through supposedly small portions of spaghetti and meatballs, but the plates were almost as big as they were, and Bucky was quite happy to sit back and just enjoy the moment, watching the crowds go by, watching his friends, his _family,_ be happy.

Amanda and Louise’s matching wedding bands caught his eye. They were simple and gold, and caught the light any time either of them moved their hands as they talked or moved to help their children. Charlie had spilt sauce down himself, and his hair was going from blue to a deep, embarrassed red. Nina was quick to draw attention from him by announcing loudly that she needed the toilet, and that Bucky had to take her.

“Papa, why aren’t you and Daddy married?” He was holding her up by the sinks so she could wash her hands, when she asked. She was giving his reflection a rather calculating look, narrowing her brown eyes at him. It hit him rather hard how much she actually looked like him, with her dark hair and dark eyes. He set her down, and she waddled over to the hand dryer. She didn’t try and talk over the loud noise, but did continue to look at him questioningly as he floundered under her gaze.

“Well, um, you see Nina-”

“Are you going to get married?” She asked, fed up of his nonsense. “Charlie said his moms got married before he was born- but you didn’t get married before I was born so does that mean you can’t get married now because I am?” Her voice wobbled a little, and Bucky bundled her up in his arms.

“No, love, we can still get married.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

“I…errr…haven’t got the rings yet?”

“Not good enough, Papa,” Nina shook her head, and then wriggled down out of his grasp, pulling him by the hand and out of the washroom.

“I think you should.” She said as they sat down, and Steve raised an eyebrow at Bucky, who just shook his head. Nina was distracted from her earlier conversation with her Papa by Charlie and his new rainbow t-shirt that said “MY MOMS LOVE ME SOOO MUCH”. Lola had a matching baby-grow on.

 

Bucky couldn’t sleep that night- whether it was the excitement of the parade, Nina’s questions, a combination of the two, he found himself sitting on the sofa at two in the morning, nursing a cup of tea. Natasha swore would make him fall asleep when she gave him the box of Chinese tea leaves, and he idly wondered if she’d mixed in crushed up sleeping pills.

“Bucky what the hell are you doing?”

Bucky turned to Steve, who was yawning as he looked at him. He had one of Bucky’s shirts on (Bucky knew it was his because it didn’t cling to him like cellophane- Bucky preferred clothes that weren’t so skin tight) and just a pair of boxers- it was too hot for pyjama pants in the middle of summer, even with the air conditioning, and both of them ran too hot because of various serums anyway.

Bucky took a moment to properly look at him, soft lamp light making his mussed hair glow like a halo around his head, and the same little crease between his eyebrows that formed when he frowned that had been there since they were kids. His blue eyes that made it so hard to look away- he’d always had a mesmerizing face.

“Marry me?” He asked quietly, unsure of himself. He took a deep breath to try and slow down his racing heart.

“Don’t answer my question with another question-” Steve said as he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms, obviously still half asleep.

“No- I’m asking you seriously.”

“What?” He looked more confused than anything else.

“Will you marry me?” Bucky tried very hard to keep his voice level as he asked. A slow smile grew on Steve’s lips and he shrugged.

“Will you come back to bed and sleep like a normal person if I say yes?”

Bucky made a small involuntary whine in protest of Steve’s teasing. He set down his mug and walked over to Steve, standing close but not close enough.

“Marry me. I want to marry you, Stevie, if you’ll have me?”

Steve took a step forward, laughing quietly as he wrapped his arms around Bucky’s waist.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Yes, Bucky, that’s a yes. I’ll marry you.”

Bucky pulled him down to kiss him, soft and sweet and he wondered if kissing Steve would always feel like he was kissing him for the first time, with the way his stomach flipped and jumped up to his throat and down to the floor.

“Now will you come back to bed?” Steve asked softly, and Bucky scrunched up his nose.

“I can’t believe you made me ask three times. Three times!”

“Wanted to make sure I heard you right,” Steve grinned, and Bucky couldn’t help but grin back.

“I love you,” Bucky whispered, taking Steve’s hand in his right one. Steve grabbed his metal hand.

“I love you too.”

 

Nina woke them up in the morning with wet kisses and shrieks of laughter, and Steve and Bucky were sure there was no one as lucky as them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand that's a wrap! Thank you for reading- I hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> There may or may not be a couple of sequel chapters coming up, so keep an eye out for those :)


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